W. Hudson Kensel (born June 16, 1928) is a western American historian and author.
W. Hudson Kensel is professor emeritus from California State University, Fresno, where he was a former chairman of the Department of History. His early childhood was spent at Pahaska Tepee and Cody, Wyoming. He moved to the state of Washington where he completed his education earning a Ph.D. in western United States history. Kensel is the author of Pahaska Tepee, Buffalo Bill's Old Hunting Lodge and Hotel, A History, 1901-1946 and Dude Ranching in Yellowstone Country: Larry Larom and Valley Ranch, 1915-1969, published in 2010 by the University of Oklahoma Press. Valley Ranch, one of the first of the western dude ranches, is located on the South Fork of the Shoshone River in northwestern Wyoming
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The son of Willard F. “Bill” Wilkinson and his wife Jessie R. Brenizer, Kensel was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He made his first trip to the American West as a newborn when his family bought Pahaska Tepee, Buffalo Bill’s hunting lodge near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. His childhood was spent at Pahaska in the summer months and in Cody, Wyoming, during the school year. The family later moved to Ellensburg, Washington, where Kensel spent his high school years. Following graduation Kensel served in the United States Army from 1946 to 1948 and was a part of the occupation forces in Japan. After completing his military service, Kensel attended the University of Washington at Seattle, where he earned a B.A. degree in Economics and Business in 1951. He attended Central Washington University in Ellensburg and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education in 1952 and a Master of Education degree in 1955 with a thesis on “Local resource use in a junior high program in the Yakima Valley, Washington.” In 1962, Kensel completed his Ph.D. in history at Washington State University in Pullman, with his dissertation on "The Economic History of Spokane, Washington, 1881-1910." He married the former Carol J. Jessup on April 4, 1969, with whom he reared four children.
Upon earning his Ph.D., Kensel taught at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington. In 1965, he joined the Department of History at California State University, Fresno, where he served as assistant professor. In 1969 Kensel became an associate professor and in 1973 he became a tenured professor. He was a visiting Professor in the Department of History at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, during the summers of 1974-1976. While at Cal State, Fresno, Kensel served as the Chairman of the Department of History from 1972 to 1982. He became Professor Emeritus in 2002.
Now living in Edmonds, Washington, Kensel continues to research and write on topics related to western American history. While conducting research in 2004 Kensel acquired a rare photo album of the Sunlight Ranch, which is located east of Cody. This photo album led Kensel to research the subjects in the pictures and in the Spring 2006 the Annals of Wyoming published, “Hope and Reality in the Sunlight Basin, Wyoming: The Painter Family and John K. Rollinson.” While conducting research on the Sunlight Ranch and dude ranching, Kensel found his next research topic – Larry Larom and the Valley Ranch. In 2006, as a resident fellow at the Cody Institute for Western American Studies at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Kensel researched this topic extensively.[1]
Pahaska Tepee, Buffalo Bill's Old Hunting Lodge and Hotel, A History, 1901-1946. Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 1987.
Dude Ranching in Yellowstone Country: Larry Larom and Valley Ranch, 1915-1969. University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
"Hope and Reality in the Sunlight Basin, Wyoming: The Painter Family and John K. Rollinson," Annals of Wyoming, Spring 2006.
"Spokane: The First Decade," Idaho Yesterdays, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring 1971.
"Inland Empire Mining and the Growth of Spokane, 1883-1905," Pacific Northwestern Quarterly, April 1969.
“The Early Spokane Lumber Industry, 1871-1910," Idaho Yesterdays, Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring 1968.