The town of Cowley was settled by a group of Mormon followers in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. The town was named for Matthias F. Cowley, one of the Apostles of the Mormon church at the time. The first group of Mormons got to the area May 2, 1900. When they got there, they started building the Sidon Canal to bring water to the town from the Shoshone River. The Canal was over 30 miles long. They finished building it in 1904.