User:Michael Griske/L. G. (Pat) Flannery



L. G. (Pat) Flannery was a Wyoming historian, newspaper publisher, statesman, cattle rancher, and veteran of both world wars. He dedicated the last years of his life to historical research and to a special labor of love --- the publication of the diaries kept by pioneer John Hunton in which the entries span more than half a century.

Flannery’s Early Life
L. G. (Pat) Flannery was born on March 3, 1894, in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended school in St. Louis and Chicago, Illinois prior to moving to Denver, Colorado with his parents in 1912. He attended high school in Denver and later enrolled in the old Colorado State College of Agriculture at Fort Collins, Colorado. There he courted Laura Alice Moomaw, married her, and in 1916, Alice gave birth to their daughter and only child, Billie.

In 1921, Mr. Flannery moved, with his wife and daughter, to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, where he engaged in ranching. In 1923, he founded a weekly newspaper, the Fort Laramie Scout, which he later combined with the Goshen County News in Torrington, Wyoming.

Careers in Government and Politics
Mr. Flannery became a leader in political circles in Wyoming, serving as state chairman of his party and as its nominee in an unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat. He was a member of the state legislature from Goshen County and served as secretary of the State Board of Charities and Reform, and at one time was director of the State Department of Commerce and Industry. Flannery spent a year in Washington, D. C. in the Information Service under Harry Hopkins prior to his appointment as State Administrator of the Works Progress Administration for Wyoming. He resigned this high-salaried government post to enlist as a $21-a-month private in World War II, having already served in World War I.

Following his discharge from the army, Flannery became supervisor of the U. S. Agriculture Census for Wyoming and Colorado. In 1947, he was appointed the Administrative Assistant to Wyoming’s Senator O’Mahoney in Washington, D. C. He served this post for six years and then retired from politics in 1953.

Becoming John Hunton’s Biographer
Mr. Flannery had long owned the homestead site of his old friend, John Hunton, at Fort Laramie. It was here that he retired and spent the last several years of his interesting life organizing and editing the Hunton diaries for publication, with a four-volume set completed and published before his death on February 4, 1964. His wife, Alice, then pursued the publication of two more volumes based on manuscripts he had in his files.



These books vividly preserved day-to-day life on the frontier and presented profiles as well as true exploits not only of people living in that era who have been all but forgotten, but also of such well-known Western folk characters as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane Canary, Buffalo Bill Cody, Generals Custer and Crook, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and many others who were known by Mr. Hunton. An abridged version of the manuscripts was compiled and edited by Mr. Flannery's grandson, Michael Griske, and subsequently published by Heritage Books in 2005.

Mr. Flannery will long be remembered for his political achievements, and even more widely known for his writing and knowledge of early Wyoming history.