Esther Hobart Morris

In 1869, the legislature passed and Governor Campbell signed a woman suffrage bill authored by South Pass City resident William Bright, making Wyoming the first territory or state to allow women the right to vote. For eight months in 1870, Esther Hobart Morris served as South Pass City’s justice of the peace, making her the nation’s first woman judge, and today she is recognized as the nation’s first woman justice of the peace. After her death in 1901, some historians claimed that she had helped Bright write the suffrage bill, but recent studies indicate that Bright was the only author, though he may have received some urging from his wife Julia and some help from Edward Lee, Secretary of the Territory.

Wyoming · United States