"There are two places I love: Africa and Wyoming."
-Ernest Hemingway
After learning about Wyoming from a fellow solider, Hemingway decided he needed to visit, any maybe even stay in Wyoming. Ernest Hemingway had many experiences in Wyoming that greatly influenced many of his works.
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The great 20th century writer Ernest Hemingway had many connections to Wyoming.
He completed his novel A Farewell to Arms at Spear-O-Wigwam, the Spear Family Ranch near Sheridan, in 1928, and would use his interactions with Sheridan residents for his short story “Wine of Wyoming.”
He took advantage of the state’s fishing and hunting, leading to Hemingway-related newspaper headlines such as “Damn You…So Let’s Go Fishing” and “Burn Horse for Bait.”
He married Martha Gellhorn at the Union Pacific Railroad Depot in Cheyenne in 1940 and maintained a strong friendship with the Coopers (of the Cooper House mansion, now the American Studies department on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie).
He spent time at the L Bar T Ranch near Cody, working on his book Death in the Afternoon in 1930 and then To Have and Have Not in 1936.
Hemingway Highways Tour, created using TravelStoryGPS app, will feature sites where Hemingway lived and worked throughout the state. In addition to A Farewell to Arms, significant works in the Hemingway canon including Death in the Afternoon, have ties to Wyoming. This itinerary of 1,700 miles will be promoted to Wyoming visitors as a way to experience the diverse physical and cultural landscapes of the state.
In addition to the Hemingway Highways Tour, University of Wyoming Saturday University explores the special connection between Wyoming and Ernest Hemingway.
UW Professor Caskey Russell's Saturday University Talk: It's a Good Country: Ernest Hemingway's Hunting and Fishing in Wyoming
UW Professor Joy Landeira's Saturday University Talk: Dodging Bulls and Bullets: Ernest Hemingway in Spain
In conjunction with Sheridan College and Wyoming Humanities’ multi-year National Endowment for the Humanities grant—“Creating Humanities Communities along the Hemingway Highway”—the Wyoming State Library and Wyoming Humanities have selected Hemingway’s first short story collection In Our Time (1925) as 2020’s One Book Wyoming. Download our One Book Wyoming: In Our Time Discussion Guide.
This collection connects to a number of different topics—World War I, fatherhood and family, war’s impact on soldiers, humans’ relationship with nature—which will allow libraries to tailor discussions to their communities’ interests.Wyoming Humanities will provide funds for libraries who wish to use a discussion leader.
Watch the video for step-by-step instructions on how to apply! While this is not a grant, the application uses the same online system as Wyoming Humanities’ grant applications. If a library has not created an account on that system, they will be required to do so in order before they can complete the request for funds.
