The museum had a great turn out for the presentation by historical author Tom Rea on March 5th. The presentation covered everything from the ancient peoples that once inhabited the famous valley to the more recently famous, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We will continue with some additional related tidbits and stories on Facebook if you would like to learn more. If you would like to purchase Rea’s book, please contact the museum at 307-738-2381. We appreciate all of our followers and supporters!

If you have not been to the museum in a while, you may want to visit and see two of our newest displays.

One of the new display cases features the role of rodeo in Kaycee, and local rodeo stars such as Deke Lathum, Larry Sandvick, and Chris Ledoux. Artifacts in the display include chaps worn by Larry Sandvick while winning rodeos as well as artifacts associated with the Deke Lathum Memorial Rodeo and Chris Ledoux’s career.

The second new display case reorganizes and better displays all of the items associated with many of our local pioneer women. There are many small personal items that are now much easier to view, as well as unique jewelry, pins, and dresses. There are several beautiful quilts, and artifacts belonging to many other early local women.

Thank you to all our tour attendees and volunteers for making our annual Hole in the Wall tour a success and an enjoyable day. The weather was absolutely perfect. Thank you everyone!

And for those who wanted our 34 year old recipe for coleslaw that was served at lunch, here it is:

Lunch at the Hole in the Wall

Cole Slaw  for  50-60 people

 5 heads cabbage, grated or sliced fine

5 green peppers

5 onions  (medium)

set aside

5 cups Apple Cider Vinegar

5 cups Oil

2 1/2 cups Sugar

10 TBLSP. honey

10 tsp. salt

5 tsp. celery seed

Bring these ingredients to a boil, boil for a few minutes then pour over the slaw.  DO NOT STIR until cool.

With support from the Wyoming State Historical Records Advisory Board, the museum recently preserved digitally 40 VHS and audio cassette tapes in a digital format. This short example clip shows Bob Winingar speaking about his Dad in WWI, along with museum interviewer Sandy Dixon and Brock Hanson reads a short poem written by Bob’s Dad.

Over the last year, the museum has been working with the Kaycee Community Voice to preserve and share the many historical interviews that ran in the paper over the years. The Voice gathered all the articles together, retyping in some cases, and gave them to the museum to put into a book format. The text had to be formatted for consistency, readability and printing as well as edited for any spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. The articles were ordered by date, and a table of contents and index were added. The book is 303 pages, and just as the original interviews were wonderful to read, so is this book. The reader will know many of the people, places and families, but may not know how amazing some of these people were or are. If you want to know Kaycee history and all the fascinating early history of the area this is a great start. It is for sale, at the museum, for $20 plus tax. Since we are closed until May, we will have it available at the annual talk on February 16^th or call the museum and we will arrange to get it to you on a staff workday at the museum or by mail. All proceeds support the museum.

Hoofprints of the Past Museum is pleased to have  Spencer R. Pelton  present Bison Hunting in Hole-in-the-Wall Country: Results of the Wold Bison Jump

This presentation provides an overview of prehistoric bison hunting on the northern Plains, reconstructs the events that occurred at the Wold Bison Jump, and then contextualizes those events relative to other bison jumps across the Plains.

Driving bison off cliffs during large scale hunts (or “bison jumping”) was a widespread practice among Native Americans living on the northern Plains of Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, but less so among groups living in Wyoming. In fact, the Wold Bison Jump, located on the Hole in the Wall Ranch west of Kaycee, WY, is one of a very few number of bison jumps in Wyoming. The University of Wyoming conducted research at this bison jump in 2013 and 2014, finding evidence for a single, rather catastrophic bison jump event and potentially tying the jump to the ancestral Crow.

Spencer Pelton received his PhD from the University of Wyoming in 2018. He has worked on archaeological sites in Wyoming for the past six years, most recently at the Powars II Paleoindian ocher quarry, the La Prele Clovis site, and the Sisters Hill Paleoindian site. Spencer lives in Douglas, WY with his wife Hallie and their dog Cashew, where he works for Transcon Environmental as a senior archaeologist.

At 1:30 before the presentation the Hoofprints of the Past Museum Board will hold a brief meeting and annual report on the museum’s 2018 activities.  Coffee and cookies will be served.