Growing up in Cheyenne, Wyo., the capital city of the least populated state in the union, had some distinct advantages. Even as a small child in the 1920s, I knew that we lived in the biggest and most important city in the state and that our gold-domed capitol building was one any state would be proud of. A huge World War I canon on the front lawn stood as a symbol of power and might. My older brother, Floyd, and I spent a lot of time on the capitol grounds because he had discovered that the broad sidewalks surrounding the …