Where You Can Find Confederate Flag Flying in Wyoming

Wyoming wasn’t admitted to the Union until 1890, but you can find symbols of the Confederacy in the state. The Confederate flag plays a strong role at events in Wyoming sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Pacific Northwest Division.

The division of the SCV includes members from Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Although members aren’t living in the South, membership is allowed for people who can trace their ancestry to Confederate soldiers.

The organization states it promotes the Southern cause during the Civil War, which included a right to secede from the Union, and the perseveration of Southern history. The group sees its ancestors as fighting against a tyrannical government that invaded the South before and during the Civil War, and “killed hundreds of thousands of Southern soldiers and civilians.”

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The Pacific Northwest Division holds events and conventions throughout Wyoming and other states.

Confederate flags and monuments wouldn’t seem to be linked to Wyoming, but connections exist because of Civil War veterans who traveled west after the war. John C. Hunton served in the Confederate Army during the war and left Virginia in 1867.

Hunton wrote journals about his adopted home in Wyoming which became important to state historians. Hunton was assigned to several Confederate units and fought at Gettysburg. He also became the first president of the Wyoming Pioneer Association, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.

Long after his burial in 1928, Hunton’s grave at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne received a Confederate grave marker in 2010. The event included remarks by historians and a ceremony at the Wyoming National Guard Museum, two blocks from the gravesite.

The Veterans Administration provided the gravestone, which was designed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Hunton had been buried next to his brother James, who was killed by Indians near the Hunton ranch in 1875.

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