Another Trip to the Past

Our campground has a mailing address of Garryowen, Montana, however the "town" consists of a gas station/convenience store and the Custer Battlefield Museum.  The name of the town comes from the marching song used by the 7th cavalry of George Custer.  Originally this was simply a small way station for trains to pick up water and drop of mail and supplies to area forts and homesteaders, but the land was included as part of the Crow Reservation when that was created.  Later the Crows sold some of the land to private citizens but still all that was there was the small store.  At the time of the 50th anniversary of the battle of the Little Bighorn, workmen were excavating an irrigation ditch when they uncovered a partial skeleton surrounded with buttons and bullets which indicated that the man had been a cavalry soldier.  Assumed to be one of the 14 men of Reno's troops who was never accounted for, the remains were reburied in a special monument created to the unknown soldier and concluded with a "burying of the hatchet" ceremony which included burying a hatchet with the soldier after a peace pipe had been smoked.

The museum itself has a very nice display of photographs of American Indians, many of whom were involved in the battle with Custer.  There are also Native American artifacts, some bullets taken from areas of the battlefield and information on the battle of Little Bighorn, including a 45 minute documentary film which was extremely interesting and also made you rethink what you learned about the battle in school.  That alone was worth the small price of entry.

Between exploring the battlefield area and working on the trailer (putting the repaired leaded glass window back in the door, trying to modify the poorly functioning air conditioning system, defrosting the fridge, etc.) and just sitting outside enjoying the scenery and watching the world go by, the week has passed quickly.  It's time to move on, this time to a tiny town called White Sulphur Springs.  We'll find someone to remove the stitches from Denny's neck, play a round of golf and see what trouble we can find to get into.

Happy Trails!

Ambivalent About Little Big Horn

I'm not going to retell the story about the Battle at Little Big Horn.  It's in all the history books and there is a ton of information online.  What I will tell you is that the National Park service has done a fine job here of  providing information to help you understand what occurred here on the ridges and plains of the Crow Reservation.  There is an audio CD available for purchase, there are a few locations where you can make a call on your cell phone to hear pre-recorded information about the site where you are standing, there are bus tours led by Native American tour guides to take you on the five mile journey to the Reno-Benteen Battlefield where the first skirmish of the Battle of Little Bighorn began, Park Rangers (some of whom are Native Americasn) lead informational walk/talks close to the visitor center or you can simply drive the route, stopping to read the informational plaques placed by the roadside and following paved walking paths.  You are asked not to wander upon the grounds, not only in respect for the grave sites but because there are rattlesnakes in the thick grasses.  The grounds of the park are as they were on that fatal day of July 25, 1876--when you look to the ridge five miles away where Reno and Benteen waited with their troops, you see it as Custer saw it.  Back then the air was filled with dust, gun smoke and screams; today it is eerily quiet.

I have looked forward for a long time to visiting the battle site, but once I was here I was saddened at the suicidal mission of Lt. Col. George Custer and his men.  As the park ranger who spoke at the visitor center said, Custer was a hero during the Civil War which ultimately led to the end of slavery but then he was given the task of forcing the Native Americans back to their reservations and thus into a form of slavery.  Ironic indeed.

In 2003 the park service dedicated this memorial to the Native Americans who fought on both sides of the battle in an effort to be fair to the Native American perspective.  Inside there are panels reflecting statements from several tribe members, creating a circle.  On the grounds of the battlefield are red granite markers which show the location of fallen warriors, a practice started only in 1999, once again in an attempt of fairness to the history of the site and the people involved.

I'm glad I came, but what we as a nation did to the Native Americans saddens me.  This battlefield is just as much the Native Americans' last stand as it was Custer's.

Buffalo Bill Historical Center

For $28 we spent two days and wandered through five different museums, all in the same building.  The Buffalo Bill Historical Center consists of the Plains Indian People museum, the Western Art center, the Firearms musuem, the Buffalo Bill and the American West museum and the Nature of Yellowstone museum.  In addition, there are outdoor gardens with sculptures, but true to our luck, because of the monster winds we had this week the gardens were closed due to downed and "loose" trees per one of the staff members.  I swear, this year we are bringing weather weirdness wherever we wander (and say THAT five times fast!)

If you love Remington, Russell, cowboys, Native Americans, history and the West, this is the place to come for some serious culture immersion.  The artwork here is phenomenal and there was a special exhibit this week called "Splendid Heritage: Perspectives on American Indian Art" along with an exhibit of Gertrude Kasebier's photographs of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors that wonderfully expressed the pride and dignity of the Native Americans who were part of Buffalo Bill's show.  

I could go on and on about the historical center because the exhibits are wonderfully showcased, well researched and thoughtfully laid out.  I have to admit, Denny and I passed on the firearms museum which appears to be huge, because guns don't interest us to the extent of spending an hour or so looking at them.  That section also appeared to have the rifles and pistols very artfully displayed and of course a lot of people headed that way.  This weekend the town of Cody also hosted the Winchester Gun Show, as well as a Powwow and a bead show, so there's no end of places to go and things to see in this town.  And we didn't even wander the town of Cody with its little bars, jewelry, boot, clothing and cowboy stores, along with restaurants, rafting trip shops and other places to explore since we have no room for souvenirs and the nifty stuff I'm sure I would have found (hey, I can always find a piece of jewelry I admire!).

Here are a few pictures, starting with me and Buffalo Bill himself. 

A display of Native American headdresses.

This bronze by Remington called "Coming Through the Rye" fascinated me due to the fact that the first horse has NO feet on the ground.  Remington pushed the envelope at having as few of the horses feet on the ground and still have a balanced piece of sculpture. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it.

Plains Indians would create an artifical curbing with large stones leading to the edge a cliff and then chase a herd of bison towards the cliff.  The first bison would see the edge and attempt to turn back but the force of the bison racing forward would push them over the edge en masse.  It was the Indians way of harvesting a large number of bison at one time and this sculpture captures that event.

Called the Redick saddle after its designer, this saddle has 100 ounces of silver inlaid in it and weighs about 105 pounds.

A Plains Indian beaded saddle.  Big difference from the one pictured above, huh?

Native American bead work on bandolier bags.

A more modern interpretation of cowboys entitled "Lookin' for the Whajamajigger".

The  Nature of Yellowstone section has a lot of great information about wildlife that is native to the area with well-mounted examples of birds and mammals on display in simulated "natural" settings.  It is very kid-friendly with hands on activities, many recordings of animal, reptile and bird sounds and imparts a lot of information in a way that isn't preachy-teachy.  And yes, I know that's not a word, but you get the idea. But the displays are for adults also and again, the staff has done a great job at displaying and effectively getting the information across to its audience.

The RV Vagabonds definitely gives the Buffalo Bill Historical Center a big two thumbs up.

Cemeteries and Museums

This is what we're still dealing with here in the Lander area.  All the branches of the Popo Agie River are still flooding and the rain hasn't let up yet.  The only change is that instead of temperatures in the low to mid 60s, we're now having highs of the mid 40s.  Yee haw.

There was a brief break in the rain the other day so Denny and I drove up to Fort Washakie, named after the Shoshone Indian chief who worked very hard at keeping the peace between the Indian nations and the white people who moved into the area.  Fort Washakie was built in part to protect the Shoshone from other tribes who weren't so friendly to the white pioneers and those who dealt with them.

Fort Washakie is located within the borders of the Wind River Reservation and is home to two cemeteries; one of which has the grave site of Chief Washakie and the other containing the graves of Sacajawea and her two sons and other relatives.  Sacajawea (also known as Sacacawea, Sacagawea, Sakakawea among other spellings) assisted her husband in guiding Lewis and Clark from the Dakotas to the Pacific Ocean, starting just two months after the birth of her son, a journey of 6,000 miles.  Her story has always fascinated me and so we decided to chance the rain to locate her grave site.

The bronze monument to Sacajawea dominates the rear of the cemetery.  In her hand she holds a sand dollar, which she later gave to Chief Washakie whom it is said always had it with him from that point on.  Someone has tied the tail feather from a hawk to her hand and at her feet are scattered stones and coins and small trinkets.  I can only assume this is following the Jewish tradition of placing stones and coins at a grave site to show that one has visited. 


Sacajawea had one natural son who was later adopted by Captain Clark after the expedition was finished and she adopted a son named Brazil.  Both are now buried on either side of her grave site, although there is still controversy as to whether or not Sacajawea is actually buried there.  Some say she died in childbirth in her mid 20s, the minister that led the burial ceremony here said she died in her 90s.  The only clear fact is that no one knows much of her life after the expedition ended.

The grounds of the Sacajawea Cemetery also house the first school house built to educate Indian children in 1878.  It is the small log structure in the picture below.  Many of the original graves had simple whitewashed stones as headstones, some of which had names or symbols painted on in black paint, most of which has washed away.

The cemetery is still in use and brilliantly colored artificial flowers grace both the new sites and most that are very old.  It is obvious that the Native Americans here hold the departed in great respect.  Many grave sites had objects that were close to the person's heart or that held memories for those who remain behind.

After stopping at the other cemetery to visit Chief Washakie's grave site we headed back to Lander to visit the Fremont County Pioneer Museum.

Housed in a bright new building, the museum is well laid out, with exhibits detailing Lander's and Wyoming's history including the discovery of oil, Wyoming jade and gold, ranching, Native American history and artifacts, personal effects from families who settled in the area and more.

A hand-beaded scene of Native Americans fighting the cavalry, sewn onto deerskin. Exquisite.

At the rear of the museum are several old buildings which you can apparently tour but are not part of the museum itself.  We saw no one around to allow us entry so we passed on this.

This is so much better than learning from history books!

Small Towns

Rawlins, Wyoming is a small town, population around 8500.  Rawlins came into existence as a stop along the Transcontinental Railroad as it was being built, since there was an alkaline-free springs in the area for water.  Coal is found in the area, as well as a red iron oxide that when ground to powder is a base for red paint.  The original Brooklyn Bridge was painted with "Rawlins Red".  As well as being a stop for the Union Pacific train line, the area was good for raising sheep and it is believed that the sheepherder's wagon was created here.  A Conestoga-type wago, the sheepherder's wagon featured a bed, a wood burning stove for heat and room for a couple of men to sleep.  Due to the vast areas that sheep grazed, sheepherders lived out with them and the wagon made their lives much easier.

Since the strongly gusting winds were still blowing yesterday, Denny and I decided to visit the Carbon County museum, currently housed in a former Mormon church on a side street in town.  The first thing you see when you enter is the original Wyoming state flag which has been carefully reconstructed and repaired. Wandering the aisles of the museum you'll find collections of furniture, tableaus of life during the early days of Rawlins, a collection of Thomas Edison's record players and artifacts, paintings and sketches by local artists, Native American beadwork and artwork, Wyoming gemstone quality jade (who knew?), exhibits on the lives of locally famous people such as the doctor who took the body of a local outlaw and dissected the brain in an effort to see if there was an obvious physical reason for his criminal mindset, then skinned the body, tanned the hide and made (and wore) a pair of shoes from the tanned skin.  Yeah, the things you can learn about people!

Wandering the back rooms of the museum we discovered a huge 32,000 pound safe made in Hamilton, Ohio (yay for our hometown state), with hand painted panels inside.  There's an interesting story to the safe and how they finally "cracked" it when it was rediscovered--a Geraldo Rivera type story.  A 52 foot long firetruck resides back there along with a collection of saddles and other items jammed in there awaiting the new museum the operators are hoping to someday build.

One of the most interesting rooms was the one filled with photographs of the early beginnings of the town and its townspeople.  Ranging from Native Americans to their early baseball and basketball teams, it was a fascinating look back at the way people lived.  There were two story houses with snow blown halfway up the sides, the newly built prison as it stood by itself in a field (it's now in the middle of a residential neighborhood),school pictures, portraits, bandits, bad guys, good guys, you name it.  Denny and I thoroughly enjoyed the two hours we spent there and recommend it as a day trip combined with a visit to the Wyoming Frontier Prison museum.

We Go to Prison

The Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum, that is. The original prison was completed in 1901 and had 104 cells.  There was no running water, no electricity (there would be no electricity until the 1950s) and little heat.  And let me tell you, the building was extremely cold when we visited when the outside temperature was in the mid-50s so I can't even imagine what it would have been like when the winter temperatures dropped below zero.  The building was in use from 1901 to 1981 when it was closed and the prisoners were transferred to a new penitentiary.  In 1987 the building was used in the filming of a low budget horror movie and a lot of damage was done to the building which the film company was not required to repair.  In 1988 the prison was established as a museum and daily tours of the premises are held with the Halloween tours being very popular.  I won't tell you what they do on the Halloween tour, but let me tell you I wouldn't want to have done the tour then!  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the building, its former inmates and the grounds and made the tour very entertaining.  One fact I found interesting is that there has never been a formalized search of the buildings and grounds for artifacts--the tour guides just wander around on their time off and have found weapons, diaries, paintings on the walls, prisoners' personal belongings, etc.  These items have been placed in a small museum within the building and are quite fascinating on their own.  There is also a tiny Wyoming Peace Officers museum inside.  While I'm not a history buff per se, I find the way we treat our fellow man fascinating and the tour included information on some of the prison's more interesting inmates.

The windowed side of the original cell block A, four tiers high with 104 individual cells.

The back side of cell block A where the interior of the cells were so dark the guards couldn't even see if the prisoners were inside, which led to the prisoners on this side being able to hide contraband.

Prisoner artwork in cell block A.

The Julien Gallows in the Death House.  Touted as a "humane" method of hanging prisoners because it involved no action on the part of jailers--the weight of the prisoner caused him to hang himself.  The prisoner stood on a platform with the noose around his neck, a weight was placed on another platform and water was poured into a bucket on another side.  Once the spout on the bucket was opened, the water emptied out a hose into another container and the weight that was attached to the now-emptying bucket slowly raised until it hit the point where it pulled on the jointed supports of the gallows, causing the joints to collapse, the gallows platform door to open and the prisoner to drop down and be hanged.  (You can see the slightly bent jointed supports above, as well as the weight).  Unfortunately, usually the prisoner's neck didn't break as planned but they strangled slowly so the gallows was replaced with the gas chamber.

A working model of the Julien Gallows in the museum.

The gas chamber, which used cyanide pills dropped into a container of water.  The windows on the rear are for viewing by witnesses to the execution. Note Denny seems to think it was an electric chair rather than a gas chamber.

 All of the prisoners were expected to work in the factories or cafeteria or gardens, but there was a one-armed prisoner who was asked to paint the walls of the cafeteria due to his disability.  Fortunately, he appeared to have been a decent artist and the variety of paintings ranged from big horned sheep to a Tuscan style patio scene to a jungle bird to scenery similar to an Arizona desert.  There is no information that explains where he got his inspiration but the artwork is surprisingly good.  Only one prisoner ever refused to work and he was so hated and so disagreeable that he is the only prisoner in the state ever to have been granted a pardon based on his bad behavior.  The agreement was that he leave the state of Wyoming and never return.

For an hour's tour and the ability to wander the two small interior museums you get a lot for your $7 ($6 for seniors) entrance fee.  There is a lot of information to browse on the lives of the prisoners, some of them quite interesting in that if all that ingeniousness and creativity had been channeled for good, they could have been outstanding citizens and inventors. The Wyoming Frontier Prison is definitely worth a stop.