February 25

1858  Ft. Thompson abandoned. The post near the present location of Lander had only been in existence since October 1857.

1868   Cheyenne passed an ordinance against gambling and disorderly houses.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1913 The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, went into effect.

1919  Photographs were taken of the Student Army Training Corps at the University of Wyoming.  The SATC was the predecessor of the Reserve Officer Training Corps.  The students here are depicted using the Krag rifle, which was obsolete at the time, but which was apparently seeing at least some training applications of this type.

1920  Woodrow Wilson signed the Minerals Leasing Act of 1920. This act created the modern system of leasing Federal oil and gas  and coal interests, which previously had been subject to claim under the Mining Law of 1872.  

 Grass Creek Wyoming, 1916

The extent to which this revolutionized the oil, gas and coal industries in economic terms can hardly be overestimated.  Prior to 1920, these fossil fuels could be exploited via a simple mining claim, and the land itself could be patented after the claim was "proved up."  The 1920 act ended this practice as to these resources (the 1872 Act continues on for other minerals, in a very modified form, to the present day).  The leasing system meant that the resources never left the public domain in absolute terns, and the payment of the lease was a huge economic boon to the state and Federal government.

1920  February 25, 1920. The Oil Leasing Act becomes law

The Casper Daily Tribune was exactly correct, the measure built the way for the oil industry in Wyoming.

Prior to the Oil Leasing Act oil prospects were located, where the Federal government owned the resource, though the Mining Law of 1872.  The act changed the location system to the benefit of both production companies and the Federal government by allowing the resource to be leased through the much simpler leasing system.  Ultimately, this benefited the state through allowing this simpler system to be utilized and by allowing non appropriated lands to remain solidly in the Federal domain, as the Mining Law of 1872 allowed lands to be patented and become private through location.

This is, of course, still the system that's used today.

1925   House Joint Memorial No. 4 approved "Memorializing the Congress of the United States to set aside Old Fort Laramie and Old Fort Bridger and Independence Rock as Historic Reserves."  Attribution:  On This Day. 

1941   The state's conscientious objectors were listed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1961  The legislature approved the purchase of the grounds of Ft. Fetterman.

1963  A 4.3 magnitude earthquake occurred near Fort Washakie.

1975  The First United Methodist Church in Cheyenne added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

2009   U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar cancelled leases on federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.  Attribution:  On This Day.

Elsewhere:

1945 Turkey declares war on Germany.

1948 Communist coup takes power in Czechoslovakia.

1956 Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.