Location: Laramie Historic Railroad Depot

Address: 1st and Kearney Streets, Laramie, WY.

Social Hour is at 7:00pm

Meeting Starts at 7:30pm

Brendon George is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently completing a dissertation entitled “Mile High Metropole: Denver and the U.S. Empire,” an exploration of Denver’s post-World War II relationship with the federal government. He currently lives in Cheyenne, WY.

“Defense Hub of the Nation”: Cold War Warriors in Northern Colorado and Wyoming

During the Cold War, westerners in Northern Colorado and Wyoming lived in a region the Rocky Mountain News called the “Defense Hub of the Nation.” The newspaper coined the name in response to the efforts of both service members and private citizens in the area who committed themselves to manufacturing and maintaining a nuclear arsenal. This talk explores the creation of this functional region through analyzing how the federal government utilized vast sums of public money to enfold these westerners into a Cold War political economy animated by national security concerns.