Chip Carlson

Chip Carlson, 84, died January 4, 2022 at Davis Hospice Center.

Chip was a Cheyenne historian and author who devoted twenty years to investigating and documenting the Tom Horn episode of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The results of that work were three published books. The most recent, Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon – Dark History of the Murderous Cattle Detective, won the annual award for history/biography of the Wyoming State Historical Society.

For seven years, he was a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Wyoming Council for the Humanities. He was also a member of the Wyoming Historical Society and Western Writers of America.

In 1993 he organized the retrial of Tom Horn in the Laramie County Courthouse, which attracted international attention to Wyoming and resulted in Horn’s acquittal. The New York Times reported on the trial and summarized it with the headline “Once Guilty, Now Innocent, But Still Dead.”

He worked as a consultant on a permanent exhibit on Tom Horn at the location where the gallows stood in the old Laramie County Courthouse.

He was a graduate of Colgate University, where he was editor of his college newspaper, with a major in philosophy and a minor in Spanish. While in college he studied in South America as a member of the Argentine Study Group. After graduation he worked in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Minnesota and Canada. He moved to Wyoming in 1977.

Chip was employed by Pitney Bowes, Cheyenne Frontier Days and Sierra Trading Post. For many years he was a volunteer on the Concessions Committee for Cheyenne Frontier Days. Chip loved Wyoming, hunting, the Boston Red Sox and large dogs.

He is survived by his wife, Susan; children, John, Lisa, Jenna and Tina; stepsons, Alan and Ken; sister, Anne; nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Memorials in his memory may be sent to Black Dog Animal Rescue, 2407 E. 9th, Cheyenne, Wyoming, 82001

A private family service will be held in the summer of 2022.

Cremation is under the care of Schrader, Aragon and Jacoby Funeral Home.