The archaeologist in me is continually amazed at how many people currently living in this Valley have ties to the earliest families, ranches and named places in the Platte River Valley and surrounding mountains.
Even before I began working with the paper, I made friends with Judy Bellamy who’s father-in-law was the surveyor who named Lake Marie and many other spots up in the Snowy Range.
Having worked on hundreds of historic archaeological sites in Wyoming, I have always had an interest in who had the cojones to homestead up here and be the first people to map and name places, apart from the American Indians of course.
Since working for the Saratoga Sun, it seems like I have met an endless stream of folks that are tied to the history of the area. I keep getting introduced to people with the same last names as many of the ranches, roads, mountains, etc. of southern Wyoming.
This weekend was a particularly fine example of this for me. As part of my grueling duties as a reporter (sarcasm implied), I had to cover both the Mountain Man Rendezvous and Living History Day down in Encampment. I was a pig in slop Saturday and Sunday surrounded by folks in period costumes, living out of period wall tents, flintknapping, blacksmithing, cooking over open fires and competing with primitive European weapons. Who doesn’t like little kids shooting guns and throwing tomahawks?
On a more serious note, I got to talk with a number of folks that have a deep understanding of the history of the Wyoming territory, military history, settlement of the west, the emigrant trails and hunting and trapping.
While at the black powder competition Bob Baker, of Golden, Colo., explained the intricacies of a Hawken rifle using his detailed replica as an example.
Bob Tarell, a member of the Sierra Madre Muzzleloaders from Laramie, just couldn’t let me walk away without shooting one of his .50 caliber rifles and I managed to hit the target three out of four times. Not bad, I think, for a guy shooting a muzzleloader for the first time.
Over at the Grand Encampment Living History Day, the first person I talked to was LuDel Deal. Her great grandfather was Robert Deal, the man who put the “De” in the Rudefeha mine. Pretty darn cool right? Then I met Annett Freeman who was demonstrating a spinning wheel to make yarn. She was there filling in for her grandmother, Carol Lee, who taught her how to spin.
After fulfilling my duties as cub reporter here at the Sun, I got my wife and father-in-law to come down to Encampment to enjoy the festivities.
We were shown around the Peryam cabin by Andy Peryam, the grandson of one of the men who built the house. His dad was born in that cabin and he was born in the cabin next to it.
As a kid I used to go to the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C., Old Town Alexandria, the houses and farms of the Founding Fathers, a variety of Civil War battlefields and a host of “living history” style museums in the D.C. area and the Shenandoah Valley. I think what I experienced this weekend is on par with these nationally-recognized landmarks.
Now, here’s where I get on my soapbox for a minute. The people who have roots in this Valley could still do more. As the old saying goes, “Nothing is certain except for death and taxes.”
We are losing our older generation. The ones that grew up on these lands before cars and highways, before oil and gas ruled the economy of Carbon County and in a time where a direct connection with the land meant success or failure.
I encourage the old timers, their kids and grandkids to get to our local museums and tell their stories, share their photographs and maybe even donate items of historical significance.
The museums are ready for you.
They have the means to record interviews, curate and display artifacts.
The history of the Valley is as rich as anywhere in the world, and the only way to preserve this for my kids and yours is to be proactive.
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