Crook County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of 2005, United States Census Bureau estimates that the population is 6,182, up from 5,887 in 2000. Its county seat is Sundance.
Crook County was organized in 1875. It was named for Brigadier General George Crook, a commander during the Indian Wars.
Adjacent counties
* Campbell County, Wyoming - west
* Weston County, Wyoming - south
* Lawrence County, South Dakota - east
* Butte County, South Dakota - east
* Carter County, Montana - north
* Powder River County, Montana - northwest
Sundance is a town in Crook County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,161 at the 2000 census. The town is named for the Sun Dance ceremony practiced by several North American Indian Nations.
HULETT, WY, was named for Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hulett, the first family to settle in the area in 1881.The beginning of Hulett at its present location was a store built in 1896 by Augustus L. Ripley. While oneof the smallest municipalities in the region, the Town of Hulett, has a very active economy.
MOORCROFT, WY, is located on the banks of the Belle Fourche River where the highway crosses the "Old Texas Trail." Once the largest shipping point in the U.S. during the 1890's, today, Moorcroft has become a town based on ranching, coal and oil production. Here, the culture of the Old West remains alive.
SUNDANCE, WY, The Crook County seat, lies at the foot of the Sundance Mountain, so namedbecause the Sioux Indians held their councils and religious ceremonies at a place called Wi Wacippi Paha,or Temple of the Sioux. It is believed that Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid, assumed his nickname in Sundance during his 18-month sentence for horse stealing.
PINE HAVEN, WY is located next to Keyhole State Park and considered the Recreation Capital of
Northeast Wyoming. Pine Haven was organized under the State Improvement & Service District Act in 1977 and it was incorporated in 1987. Frank and Maxine Harwood were the primary organizers of the community, which Maxine named. Aladdin and Beulah, unincorporated communities, are also in Crook County.
Devils Tower National Monument
* Keyhole State Park
Devils Tower is a steep-sided igneous body and, possibly, an erosional remnant of a volcanic neck. It is made of magma that solidified at a shallow level (about 700 to 3,000 feet; 200 to 1000 m) below the surface. Erosion then stripped the overlying lay ers of rock away. The rock at Devils Tower is about 40 million years old. The rock is called a 
phonolite based on its mineral composition, which includes anorthoclase, aegirine-augite, and sphene. Devils Tower rises 1,253 feet (382 m) above the nearby Belle Fouche River. For more information contact Devils Tower National Monument. Photo by Steve Mattox, June 1979.
Sioux warriors assisted the British during the War for Independence as well as the War of 1812.
Nevertheless, in 1815, the bands in the East inked peace treaties with the infant country.
An additional agreement in 1825 assured the Sioux control of a ast region that encompassed much of what is today Missouri, Iowa, Wyoming, the Dakotas*, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In 1837, the United States purchased from the Sioux all their possessions east of the Mississippi River, followed by more land acquisition in 1851.
Attacks and counterattacks ensued, then increased when white settlers encroached westward upon Sioux lands. The year 1854 saw the first significant incident in Wyoming, not far from Fort
Laramie. Nineteen U.S. soldiers were killed by Sioux fighters. The next year, U.S. soldiers took revenge and annihilated approximately 100 Sioux in their Nebraska camp; their chief was taken prisoner.
In 1862, Chief Little Crow launched an insurrection in Minnesota. The warriors slaughtered hundreds of settlers in the New Ulm area before U.S. Army soldiers defeated them. Many surviving Sioux
linked up with others of their nation farther west. Throughout the 1860s, Red Cloud and other strong leaders held the whites at bay and out of Sioux lands. A one-year conflict dubbed Red Cloud’s War (1866-1867), concluded with a treaty that guaranteed the Sioux permanent possession of the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota. The covenant, however, was not observed by the United States.
Prospectors and miners itching for gold inundated the territory in the 1870s. In the ensuing hostilities, Brigadier General George Crook commanded the Sioux to move onto a reservation. Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse refused to comply and move their people. Infuriated by unjust assaults, Sitting Bull gave notice:
"We are an island of Indians in a lake of whites... These soldiers want war. All right, we'll give it to them!"
On June 17, 1876, a war party of Sioux and Cheyenne took Crook's soldiers by surprise in southern Montana and routed them in the Battle of the Rosebud. General George A. Custer then led a force against the Indians. On June 25, he and his men ran into a Sioux war party on the Little Bighorn River. Not a single soldier in Custer's immediate command of some 300 men survived "Custer's Last Stand."
The Sioux then separated into bands to get away more easily. The army caught some, and others surrendered. A few, including Sitting Bull's band, escaped to Canada.
The final Sioux insurrection took place in 1890. Fearing another broader conflict, Brigidier General Nelson A. Miles ordered the apprehension of Sitting Bull, who was living in South Dakota on
the Standing Rock Reservation. When the chief resisted, Indian policemen slayed him. Then Big Foot ook command of the last band of fighting Sioux. In December these Indians were trapped
by the U.S. Army on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, and annihilated. (source Wikipedia)
Hello, My name is Jo Ann Boyd Scott, I am your Genealogy Trails host for Crook County Wyoming. I try to bring you as many of the stories, biographies, military etc. Use the search box located under the county to speed up your search. THIS SITE IS UP FOR ADOPTION.
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