Grace Raymond Hebard - Author

Author

Grace Hebard continued breaking new ground when she became the university's first librarian. Hebard assumed the role of librarian, without pay, beginning in 1894. She established a library from some "sacks of books" that she found in a small locked room at the university. Hebard received appointment as the university's first official librarian in 1908. Hebard continued serving as librarian until 1919. The catalogued collection of books had grown to 42,000 volumes by the end of her tenure. Hebard launched her formal career as a classroom teacher when she received an appointment in 1906 as the university's head of the Department of Political Economy.

Hebard extended her academic activities to include serving on an advisory board for the Wyoming Historical Association. This affiliation helped point her towards her new research pursuit, spearheading trail marking in Wyoming for the Oregon Trail and other pioneer routes. Hebard's work included mapping old trails in Wyoming, particularly the Oregon Trail. However, she contributed more than cartography. Hebard began collecting historical documents and other materials regarding Wyoming history.

Moreover, she traveled the state, seeking interviews with Old West pioneers and spent several summers among the Shoshone Indians of Wyoming. Prior to her death in 1936, Hebard bequeathed her collection to the University of Wyoming. Her papers characteristically included her own maps, publications, field books, and writings. Her often romanticized view of the Old West shaped the books that she wrote on Wyoming history. Hebard's published works include:

• The Government of Wyoming (1904),
• The Pathbreakers from River to Ocean (1911),
• The Bozeman Trail (1922), co-author with E.A. Brinninstool (collaboration done entirely via correspondence)
• Washakie (1930),
• Sacajawea (1933)

Illness and ultimately her death ended progress on what would have been Hebard's final book, an account of the Pony Express. Famed frontiersman and expeditionary photographer William Henry Jackson collaborated with Hebard as an illustrator in 1933 and 1934. He provided water colors and sketches for her unpublished manuscript. Hebard's association with Jackson began in 1920, when her research led to a request for a copy of a photograph of Chief Washakie made by Jackson during the Hayden Geological Survey.