Artist: Benjamin S. Kanne (1897–1952)
Francis Emroy Warren
WARREN, FRANCIS EMROY (1844–1929), inducted 1940
Francis Emroy Warren was born on a dairy farm in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, and received the Congressional Medal of Honor for Civil War battlefield gallantry at age nineteen, while serving in the 49th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. After the war, he took a job as a farm foreman, and when the new rails of the Union Pacific reached Cheyenne, Wyoming, he headed west. There, the pioneering sheepman established Warren Livestock Company. Although he always maintained his livestock pursuits, Francis E. Warren was destined for political leadership. He became a member of the Wyoming territorial senate and the Cheyenne city council, and then was mayor of Cheyenne and territorial treasurer. In 1885, he was appointed Territorial Governor, helping to lead Wyoming toward statehood. When Wyoming became the forty-fourth state in 1890, Francis Warren was elected its first governor. He resigned one year later, to become one of the state’s first two US Senators.
Senator Warren supported protective tariffs for woolgrowers and reclamation of arid western lands. He served as chairman of several committees including Appropriations, Agriculture and Forestry, Military Affairs, and Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands. Warren supported women’s suffrage and was the first senator to hire a female staffer. When he died in 1929, he was the longest-serving member of the US Senate, with thirty-eight years of service. F. E. Warren Air Force Base and Mt. Warren—the highest summit in the Wind River mountain range—are named in his honor.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 196