Agnes Wright Spring (January 5, 1894 – March 20, 1988) was a journalist, writer and historian from Wyoming who wrote books focusing on Wyoming and Western history.
Wright was born on January 5, 1894, in Delta, Colorado, the daughter of Gordon L. Wright.[1] In 1901 the family moved to a ranch on the Little Laramie River, Wyoming.[2]
In 1913 Wright was the first woman to graduate with a civil engineering degree from the University of Wyoming.[2] She was also the first woman editor of The Wyoming Student.[3] She attended Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University.[2]
She was a journalist, the editor of The Arrow, the national organ of Pi Beta Phi fraternity. She was State Librarian of Wyoming from 1917 to 1921 and State Historian of Wyoming, ex-officio, from 1917 to 1919. She was an assistant Librarian for the Wyoming Supreme Court. She was superintendent of weights and measures.[3] She resigned in 1921 to marry Archer T. Spring (d. 1967) and lived at Fort Collins, Colorado.[1] In the 1920s she worked at the Pi Beta Phi settlement schoolinGatlinburg, Tennessee.[2]
Wright was editor of two departments of Wyoming Stockman-Farmer. She was contributor to Sunset Magazine and A Child's Garden and other periodicals.[1] Spring wrote over 500 articles and 22 books on the Rocky Mountain West.[1]
She was a member of: Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Collins Woman's Club, Fort Collins Country Club, Quill Club, Pi Beta Phi.[1]
In the 1930s she lived in a fruit orchard named Cherryhurst in Colorado. During World War II, from 1935 to 1941, she served as the director of the Wyoming Federal Writer’s Project. In 1941 she became a research assistant at the Denver Public Library. In 1950 she became president of the Colorado Historical Society and also served as Colorado State Historian from 1954 to 1963. She achieved the goal to be the only person, man or woman, to serve as the official state historian of two states, Wyoming and Colorado.[2]
In 1970 she appeared in the Documentary The Last of the Westerners, directed by David A. Tapper.
In 1983 she was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum.[3]
She died on March 20, 1988, in Fort Collins, Colorado.[2]
The Agnes Wright Spring, 1894-1988, Papers are preserved at the University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center.[2]
In 2022, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.[4]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.