The young couple started west in 1856, and after various business ventures in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Illinois, arrived in Laramie City, Dakota Territory, in May, 1868. With them they had the necessary stock to open a grocery and general mercantile business. Accompanying them was their daughter, Margaret, whom they had adopted in Peoria. In addition to his mercantile business, Edward Ivinson became the chief purveyor of ties and timber for the Union Pacific Railroad, and this enterprise was the base of his future fortune. In 1871, he purchased a bank and expanded his real estate holdings. It was said that for fifty years he walked past the bank every night at exactly 8:30 to see that all was well with the institution, which held his millions. In addition to his business interests, Ivinson was active in a great number of civic enterprises. He was Treasurer of the University of Wyoming’s first Board of Trustees; Vestryman and Senior Warden of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral parish; Mayor of Laramie, and an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in the second state election in 1892.

Jane Ivinson was instrumental in forming the Episcopal parish, the first Sunday School, the first public school, and was involved in a wide range of educational and charitable activities. She died in 1915, not long after the couple had celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. In her memory, Ivinson built a hospital, a home for aged ladies, deeded their mansion to the Episcopal Church to house a girls’ school, and completed the towers, the clock and the chimes of St. Matthew’s Cathedral. He died in Denver in 1928 at the age of 98.

Reprinted from Laramie Plains Museum brochure.