Professor Emeritus

William S. Bryans

Vita

• Education
  • B.A. with High Distinction, Colorado State University, May 1975.
  • M.A. in History, Colorado State University, May 1979.
  • Ph.D. in History, Department of History, University of Wyoming, May 1987.
  •  Dissertation: “A History of Transcontinental Railroads and Coal Mining on the Northern Plains to 1920”—Adviser: Dr. Robert W. Righter
• Research Interests
  • General: Public History, History of the American West; American History.
  • Specialized: Historic Preservation:  State and Local History; Museum Studies; Archives and Manuscripts; Mining and Energy Development in the American West; Twentieth Century American West.
• Work History

  Academic

  • Instructor, School of Extended Studies, University of Wyoming, 1986-1987.
  • Graduate Assistant, Department of History, University of Wyoming, 1979-1985.
  • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of History, Colorado State University, 1976-1978.

  Public History

  • Consultant for Pawnee Nation and White Eagle & Associates for National Park Service grants for nominating 11 buildings of the former Pawnee Agency and Boarding School to the National Register of Historic Places and studying the feasibility of rehabilitating them, 1998-2001.
  • Consultant for Armory Restorers, Inc., a division of the Lincoln County Historical Society, in preparing a TEA-21 grant for the rehabilitation of the WPA National Guard Armory in Chandler, Oklahoma, 1999.
  • Principal investigator for 14 subgrantee agreements with the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office.  Projects included historic preservation surveys, development of historic context documents, and preparation of the National Register of Historic Places nominations, 1988-1996.
  • Archives Assistant, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, 1985-1986.  Catalogued manuscript collections.
  • Contract Historian, Glenrock Historical Commission, Glenrock, Wyoming, 1985-1986.  Under a grant from the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, researched historic sites and authored an area history.
  • Contract Historian, Geological Survey of Wyoming, 1983.  Researched and authored an agency history.
  • Assistant, Wyoming Historical Survey, Department of History, University of Wyoming, 1983.  Recorded historic sites for a state inventory and determined their eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Cultural Resource Consultant/Historian, Miriah Associates, Laramie, Wyoming, 1982.  Authored historic overviews of study area, researched site-specific histories, and determined site eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Program Coordinator and Historian, 1981-1982.  Prepared two one-hour long radio programs on Wyoming history for Visions of the Past, a Wyoming Council for the Humanities project.
  • Research Assistant, Wright Project, Department of History, University of Wyoming, 1980-1981.  Assisted Dr. Robert W. Righter in researching a history of Wright, Wyoming under a contract with the Atlantic Richfield Company.
  • Cultural Resource Consultant/Historian, Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, Casper, Wyoming, determined their eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Intern, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming, 1980.  Inventoried and processed a manuscript collection pertaining to a prominent dude rancher.
  • Cultural Resource Consultant/Historian, Laboratory of Public Archeology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1978.  Authored historic overview of study area researched site-specific histories, and determined site eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.
• Publications
  • Co-editor, American Passages: A U.S. History Reader. 2nd edition.  Dubuque: Kendall-Hunt Publishing, 1997.
  • Deer Creek: Frontiers Crossroad in Pre-Territorial Wyoming. Glenrock, WY: Glenrock Historical Commission, 1990.
  • A History of the Geological Survey of Wyoming. Bulletin 65. Laramie:  Geological Survey of Wyoming, 1986.
  • “Time Capsules: Preserving the Present for the Future.”  Oklahoma Field Advisory Service: Technical Bulletin 5. Muse News 20 (July 1990): 5-6.
  • “The Mining Frontier of the American West.” (Organization of American Historians Magazine of History for Junior and Senior High School Teachers 3 (Spring 1988): 11-14.
  • “Coal Mining in Twentieth Century Wyoming: A Brief History,” Journal of the West 21 (October 1982): 24-35.
  • “Wyoming Forests.” In The Encyclopedia of Forest and Conservation History. New York: The Free Press, 1983. Pp. 733-734.
  • Books reviewed for: Western Historical Quarterly; Journal of the West; Montana, the Magazine of Western History; and, Annals of Wyoming.