History lives at GEM

LuDel Deal has both a passion for printing and a family connection to the North Platte Valley.

Her great-grandfather was Robert Deal, one of the original owners of the Rudefeha mine, The Rudefeha was just west of the town of Battle, which was about 16 miles west of Encampment.

LuDel has been coming up from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Encampment most weekends this summer and restoring the platen press that is housed in the old Battle Miner newspaper building at the Grand Encampment Museum (GEM).

Deal spent part of her career working at the Casper-Star Tribune, and even fell in love with her husband there.

Last summer, while visiting the museum, she told the director it was a dream of hers to work in the old print shop. It turns out that was an achievable dream, and with the help of Dick Perue, former newspaper man and local historian, she learned how to run the platen press and set type.

With a big smile on her face Deal said "There are gaming geeks, and I'm a printing geek."

Deal was one of many helping the GEM during it's annual Living History Day last Saturday. There were volunteers dressed in period costume manning the livery stable, the Palace bakery and ice cream parlor, the saloon, the Vocation Agriculture building, the Wolfard school house, the Peryam house, the blacksmith shop, and the Battle Miner building.

"People like the relaxed state of it all," said Annett Freeman about the Living History Day.

She could be found spinning coarse thread from lambs wool on the porch of the Saratoga Cabin. Freeman, a 24-year-old mother of one from Saratoga, was filling in for her grandmother who taught her how to dye, spin and weave.

Scotty Drumm, a Manitou Springs, Colo. resident, has been coming up on the weekends with LuDel Deal so that he can work on the blacksmith shop and other projects at the GEM. He spent the day talking to visitors about the nuts and bolts of blacksmithing in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

He noted that in the late 1800s many people could tell the work of individual horseshoe makers by the details of their finished product.

Drumm, who has been blacksmithing for eight years, also discussed the equipment and tools museum's shop such as their furnace, anvil and specialized drills and clamps. Drumm, along with the help of Amber Horne, is trying to identify and catalog the blacksmithing artifacts at the GEM.

"There are things here that have not only historical and sentimental value, but are worth money," said Drumm. He believes the museum should know what they have, so they can better preserve it for future visitors and the families who have donated items.

One building, of which a volunteer had a particularly close tie to, was the Peryam house. Andy Peryam explained to visitors that his dad was born in that cabin, and he was born in the cabin next to it. This, of course, was before the cabin was moved to its current spot at the GEM. Much of the furniture in the Peryam house is original to the cabin, and was donated by the Peryam family over the years.

Living History Day at GEM served to teach visitors from the Valley and around the country about local history with the help of many individuals intimately tied to that history.