Archives West Finding Aid

William A. Richards was born on March 9, 1849 in Hazel Green, Wisconsin. He attended public school until about the age of 17, when he began a teaching career in Wisconsin and Illinois from 1866 to 1869. During the Civil War he drove an ambulance, because he was too young to enlist. After his teaching career, he began to practice surveying and civil engineering. He surveyed the southern and western boundaries of Wyoming Territory in 1873-1874 with his brother Alonzo. He continued work as a surveyor in Santa Clara County, California, from 1876-1880 before moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to recover from tuberculosis. In 1883 Richards was elected county surveyor of El Paso County and city engineer of Colorado Springs.

Richards homesteaded in Johnson County, Wyoming, in 1885. He was elected commissioner of Johnson County and managed a large cattle company before being appointed U. S. Surveyor General for the state of Wyoming by President Benjamin Harrison in 1889. He served four years and was then elected as governor of Wyoming. He served from 1895 to 1898. After Richards declined a nomination for reelection as governor, President William McKinley appointed him assistant commissioner of the General Land Office. It was during this time that he was directly involved in opening up the Indian Territory to settlement. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him commissioner of the General Land Office in 1903.

William A. Richards married Harriett Alice Hunt on December 28, 1874. They had three daughters. In 1912, Richards travelled to Melbourne, Australia, where he died of angina pectoris on July 25, 1912.