CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - Officials came together on Thursday to celebrate a building opening and the reason we are called the “Equality State.”

State and municipal officials recognized the Louisa Swain federal building with a ceremony.

Today, they dedicated the Louisa Swain federal building and celebrated not only Wyoming’s history but women’s as well.

Wyoming has a long history of equality, and Swain is mainly the reason why.

“For us in Wyoming, it’s just something to be proud of you know, thinking about the people that came before us. They saw a vision of equality and you know they voted to do that, a group of men voted to give women the right to vote, the first in the country, and I just think that’s special,” said Mayor Patrick Collins.

She was the first woman to vote 50 years before the 19th amendment.

“I think it also stands as a marker that we should continue to do the best that we can to make sure that we live up to being the equality state,” said Gov. Mark Gordon.

This pioneer blazed a path for women’s rights to have money, own land, sit on a jury, keep their children, and sit in Office.

Cl;-”Wyoming should acknowledge its past but use it as a springboard to continue to advance women’s rights. It’s important that this state continue to lead in that area,” said U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis.

The Wyoming Territorial Legislature gave women these rights in 1869, and when Washington D.C. asked Wyoming to repeal this right in order to join the federal union...

“The legislature said, well representatives of the legislature said, ‘We will remain out of the Union 100 years before we come in without the women.’” said Mary Mountian, Executive Director of Louisa Swain Foundation.

Wyoming women led in the past, lead today and will forge new frontiers in our future.

This is the first federal building to be named after a woman in the region and is now open to the public in Cheyenne, Wyoming.