natural gas, oil, and trona. Agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool. It was the first state to allow women the right to vote and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. Due to this part of its history, its main nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968. History Several Native American groups originally inhabited the region today known as Wyoming. The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were but a few of the original inhabitants European explorers encountered when they first visited the region. What is now southwestern Wyoming was claimed by the Spanish Empire, which extended through the Southwest and Mexico. With Mexican independence in 1821, it was considered part of Alta California. U.S. expansion brought settlers who fought for control. Mexico ceded these territories after its defeat in 1848 in the Mexican–American War. From the late 18th century, French-Canadian trappers from Québec and Montréal regularly entered the area for trade with the tribes. French toponyms such as Téton and La Ramie are marks of that history. American John Colter first recorded a description in English of the region in 1807. He was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which was guided by French Canadian Toussaint Charbonneau and his young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea. At the time, Colter's reports of the Yellowstone area were considered fictional. On a return from Astoria, Robert Stuart and a party of five men discovered South Pass in 1812. The Oregon Trail later followed that route as emigrants moved to the west coast. In 1850, mountain man Jim Bridger found what is now known as Bridger Pass. Bridger also explored Yellowstone, and filed reports on the region that, like Colter's, were largely regarded at the time as tall tales. The Union Pacific Railroad constructed track through Bridger Pass in 1868. It was used as the route for construction of Interstate 80 through the mountains 90 years later. The region acquired the name Wyoming by 1865, when Representative James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio introduced a bill to Congress to provide a "temporary government for the territory of Wyoming". The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Thomas Campbell wrote