City of Powell, Ohio history

In 1899, Cody and his longtime show-business partner, Nate Salsbury, acquired water rights previously claimed and then abandoned by Wyoming Congressman Frank W. Mondell.

Hoping to lure more settlers to the region, the state of Wyoming changed the name of the Stinking Water River to Shoshone River in 1902 but still the irrigation project floundered.

The Powell area joined the development with the Shoshone Project and Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone River in 1904, which was one of the first three projects authorized by the United States Bureau of Reclamation.

In 1907, the United States Reclamation Service established a work camp, named Camp Colter in honor of mountain man John Colter, alongside the tracks of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy in what was then Big Horn County in the northern end of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin.

In 1908 water from the Garland canal was made available to settlers in the area.

The first town lots for Powell were put on the auction block in May 1909 and the town grew.

In honor of the incorporation of Powell Wyoming on May 10, 1910, here is a brief history and glance at the city.

In 1911, Powell became part of the newly organized Park County.

After the 1915 fire, the community formed a volunteer fire department and purchased a new alarm bell.

The Homesteader Museum in Powell, in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin, gives a visitor a clear sense of the conditions that faced families trying to turn Wyoming land into farms through irrigation — they worked in pioneer conditions, well into the 1920s.

Beginning in 1923 Powell became the host community of the Park County Fair after reaching an agreement with neighboring Cody, the county seat, which secured the Fourth of July celebration in return.

The photograph was taken by A.G. Lucier in 1926.

In 1939, Powell resident Earl Durand created a national stir by leading law officials on a highly publicized manhunt.

Powell’s more famous residents include publisher Alan Swallow, who founded Swallow Press in Colorado in 1940 to publish poetry, fiction and western Americana.

Powell is the site of Northwest College (1946; two-year) and of the annual Park County Fair.