Wyoming celebrates 150th anniversary of women’s suffrage

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming marked Tuesday the 150th anniversary of becoming the first government in the U.S. to give women the unrestricted right to vote.

Wyoming, whose motto is the Equality State, was still a territory when Gov. John Campbell signed legislation granting women's suffrage on Dec. 10, 1869.

The U.S. Constitution had left the issue of suffrage to the states, and Wyoming's bill passed five decades before the 19th Amendment instituted the right across the U.S.

Laramie's Louisa Gardner Swain became the first woman to vote in a Wyoming election the following year.