May 29, 2014
The University of Wyoming Cowboys football team on the gridiron in 1936. Corbett Field
(today the site of the College of Business Building and Wyoming Union parking lot)
was dedicated Oct. 14, 1922, and was home to the Cowboys until 1950, when War Memorial
Stadium opened. Prior to Corbett Field, football games were played on Prexy’s Pasture.
A modest set of bleachers offered seating for the fans. (American Heritage Center)
Films of University of Wyoming football games, including the Pokes’ historic 1951
Gator Bowl win, are included in a collection of the university’s intercollegiate athletics
records dating back to 1920.
The UW American Heritage Center (AHC) has digitized and made accessible online 90
films documenting UW football and basketball history. The collection is composed mostly
of films of UW football and basketball games. There is a nearly complete run of football
games dating from 1936-1997; and of basketball games from 1971-1997, with a few films
existing outside these dates.
About 5 percent of the films document other UW sports from the 1980s and 1990s. The
collection also includes scrapbooks of newspaper clippings for UW football and basketball
(1920-1946), and a small portion of football schedules and game brochures (1955-1969).
Intercollegiate athletics dates back to 1893 when the first UW football team was created.
Basketball was formed in 1904, and sports such as boxing, wrestling, fencing and gymnastics
were formed after World War I.
During the 1930s and 1940s, swimming, skiing, track, golf, baseball and tennis started.
Up until the 1960s, intercollegiate sports were played in the Mountain States Athletic
Conference, also known as the Skyline Conference. In 1962, Wyoming became a founding
member of the Western Athletic Conference, which began as a six-team league and grew
to 16 teams. In 1999, the Mountain West Conference was created, with Wyoming being
one of the founding members.
Links to digitized films and additional information about the UW intercollegiate athletics
records can be found in the on-line finding aid at: http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah515001.xml.
The AHC is UW’s manuscripts repository, university archives and rare books library.
It is one of the largest and most actively used non-governmental primary source repositories
in the United States. In addition to outstanding collections that document the history
of most aspects of the Rocky Mountain West, the AHC has internationally acclaimed
holdings in popular entertainment (TV, radio and film), aviation and aerospace, railroads,
journalism, conservation, aspects of U.S. military history, economic geology and ranching.
Its award-winning website is at www.uwyo.edu/ahc/.
For more information, contact the AHC Digital Programs Department, email jgreene@uwyo.edu
or call (307) 766-3704.
