Willis Van Devanter papers, 1879-1966

Willis Van Devanter (1859-1941) was Wyoming’s first State Supreme Court Justice and eventually came to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He graduated from Cincinnati University Law School in 1881 and began practicing law with his father in Marion, Indiana.

Van Devanter moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1884 to practice law and soon became very involved with politics as a member of the territorial legislature and commissioner to revise the territorial statutes. In 1889, President Harrison appointed him Chief Justice of the territorial Supreme Court. After Wyoming became a state in 1890, he was elected to the same position and became the state’s first Chief Justice.

In 1897, President McKinley appointed him Assistant Attorney General. He remained very active in the Republican Party, and President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him a United States Circuit Judge in 1903. He was named to the Supreme Court by President Taft in 1910, and he remained on the bench until his retirement in 1937. While on the Supreme Court, Van Devanter was considered the Court’s foremost expert on cases relating to public lands, mining claims, water rights, and other matters of interest to the Western United States.

Van Devanter died as a result of a heart attack in 1941.