File:Cooper House, home to the American Studies program at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming LCCN2015632809.tif

English: Title: Cooper House, home to the American Studies program at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming

Physical description: 1 photograph : digital, tiff file, color.

Notes: Forms part of: Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.; The house is named for Frank Cooper, an English aristocrat who came to Wyoming in the 1870s and created a vast cattle ranching empire. Cooper also made a fortune by developing the first successful means to freeze and transport beef. In 1904 he sold his land in Wyoming and moved back to England. However, he retained the mineral rights to his former holdings, which proved to be very lucrative. The discovery of oil in Coopers Cove and the Rock Creek valley in 1917 started Wyoming's first oil boom. Because United States law required that for an individual to retain ownership of mineral rights he had to be resident in the United States of America, Cooper made plans to return to Wyoming with his family. He died suddenly in 1918, but the Cooper children, Richard, John and Barbara, moved to Laramie and commissioned local architect Wilbur Hitchcock to construct this residence. The design of the house was apparently based on a house one of the Coopers had seen in Santa Barbara, California.; Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.; Purchase; Carol M. Highsmith Photography, Inc.; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:069).; Credit line: Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.