Lovell, in the 1930s the largest town in northwestern Wyoming, rated a full two paragraphs in the American Guide Series book, Wyoming, a Guide to its History, Highways, and People. Earlier in the book the Big Horn Academy rates a mention, as well. It only existed for one year in Lovell before moving to Cowley.
Lovell is known as the Rose City, primarily through the dedication and commitment of Dr. William Watts Horsley, an authority on roses, who came to Lovell in the 1920s. The climate and growing conditions were ideal for growing his prized roses. Soon the town became populated with home rose gardens, then community rose gardens were established. During the summer tourists from all across America come to Lovell to enjoy the beauty of the rose gardens throughout the town.
Lovell was named after a local cattle rancher, Henry Lovell, who established a herd of over 25,000 head in the early 1880s.
Lovell's Town Hall is an Art Deco building with a very interesting architectural element above and around the entryway. Looking for all the world like a mid '30s WPA project, it was most likely built prior to 1932, or after 1942.
Lovell's historic Hyart Theater and the EJZ Bridge over the Shoshone River, built in 1925, are both on the National Register of Historic places. Also in town is Mural Park with a outstanding mural:
Wild Horses of Big Horn Canyon, by artist Harry Engstrom, and assisted by 12 year old Rachel A. Erest, completed in 1999.
Mormon Colonizers in Wyoming’s
Bighorn Basin
From 1847 to 1900, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) founded hundreds of settlements throughout Utah and the Intermountain West. One of the last places they settled was in the Bighorn Basin of northern Wyoming, where they established the towns of Byron and Cowley in the fall of 1900. They also moved into the existing settlement of Lovell, where they quickly outnumbered the original non-Mormon settlers and redefined Lovell as a Mormon town.
The northern basin was already home to a small group of Mormons who had settled in Burlington, Wyo., beginning in 1893. Their success brought the area to the attention of LDS Church leaders, and this, along with encouragement from Wyoming government leaders, led to an official church-sponsored colonization project known as the Big Horn Basin Colonization Company. It was organized on April 9, 1900, for the purpose of building an irrigation canal north of the Shoshone River and establishing agriculture and communities in the Bighorn Basin. The company was led by LDS Church Apostle Abraham Owen Woodruff along with Byron Sessions, Jesse W. Crosby and Charles A. Welch, all of whom were prominent men in Utah. Sessions, Crosby and Welch would go on to become the top ecclesiastical leaders of all Mormons in the Bighorn Basin."
From Wyoming History Org