Your are Cordially Invited

to attend the

Saratoga Historical

& Cultural Association

Annual Meeting

& Dinner

Saturday, Aug. 1st, 2020

Platte Valley Community Center

5:30 Complimentary Wine & Beer

6 pm Dinner

7 pm Meeting

7:20 pm Guest Speaker

Author Candy Moulton

Dinner Catered by

Firewater Public House

Menu:

Small Dinner Salad

Your Choice:

6oz Steak with Morel Sauce

With Yukon Mashers

Or

A Pistachio Crusted Walleye

With rice and roasted vegetables

Dessert:

Mini cheesecake with

raspberry compote

RSVP to 307-326-5511

by July 18th

Cost is $40 for members

Future members will enjoy

the membership pricing!

Mormon Handcart Migration Topic of Annual Meeting Talk

Award-winning author Candy Moulton speaks with great au-thority in presenting this impressively detailed examination of a unique chapter in the history of the Western trails. Among the amazing multitude of diaries, journals, letters and other primary sources she researched Moulton includes examples from her own family’s history as well as her personal experiences reliving aspects of the trek during sesquicentennial reenact-ment….”Mormon’s Handcart Migration” provides an incredi-bly rich, highly detailed exami-nation of the immigrants.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints employed a new means of getting con-verts to Great Salt Lake City who could not afford the jour-ney otherwise. They began using handcarts, thus initiating a five-year experiment that has become a legend in the annals, of Mormon and North American migration. Only one in ten Mormon emigrants used handcarts, but of those 3,000 who did between 1856 and 1860, most survived the harrowing journey to settle Utah and become members of a remarkable pioneer generation. Others were not so lucky. More than 200 died along the way, victims of exhaustion, acci-dent, for a few starvation and exposure to late-season Wyoming blizzards. Now Candy Moulton tells of the successes, travails, and tragedies in an epic retelling of a legendary story.

The Mormon Handcart Migration traces each stage of the jour-ney, from the transatlantic voyage of newly converted church members to the gathering of the faithful in the eastern Nebraska encampment known as Winter Quarters. She then traces their trek from the western Great Plains, across modern-day Wyoming, to their final destination at Great Salt Lake, The handcart experi-ment was the brainchild of Mormon leader Brigham Young, who decreed that the saints could haul their own possessions, push-ing or pulling two-wheeled carts across 1,100 miles of rough ter-rain, much of it roadless and some of it untrodden.

The author will be signing her award winning book Mormon Handcart Migration after the meeting!

The Lyre Saratoga Historical &

Cultural Association

Box 1131 Saratoga, WY 82331

Newsletter No. 43, April 2020

The colorful name of the forty third edition of this newsletter comes from the name of Saratoga’s first newspaper “The Platte Valley Lyre”

Accession Report

Care of Museum Collections

Accessioning is just one small aspect of the cura-tion and care of the museum and its collections.

Definition: “Accessioning” is the process of creat-ing a permanent record of an object assemblage or lot received from one source at one time for which the museum has custody right or title, and assign-ing a unique control number to said object assem-bly or lot.

Museum 101: “ A ” is for Accession

Pretend our museum received eleven goblets a local family donated to us.

Today, it’s time to check these goblets into the museum. In museum vernacular, the formal proc-ess of bringing an item (or in this case, items) into the collection is called accessioning.

Here is a behind the scene peek at what we do. Step 1: Clean the item, as best as one can without

being invasive to the object. Step 2: Assign an accession num-

ber. “Accession number” is the mu-seum’s way of saying “inventory number”. Every item in our collec-tion has a unique accession number. 2020.01.001. The first set is the year donated. The 2nd set is the identity of the donator. The 3rd set is the number within the donations given. Say there were 12 items in this col-lection; the number would look this way 2020.01.012.

If Aunt Edna (the second person to donate this year) donates a desk, her number would start with 2020.02.001. She also donated a chair 2020.01.002 and found an ink-well 2020.02.003. This is only the first step in accessioning a collec-tion.

Remembering our fishing roots

Sherry MacKay taught the kindergarten to count the wheels on the Union Pacific Big Boy as it stopped in Medicine Bow. Do you know how

many wheels are on the historic engine?

TREASURER’S REPORT

REVENUE

Craft Mart $ 326 Endowment Fund $ 342 US Treasury Refund $ 1,215 Annual Meeting $ 1,476 Memberships $ 2,630 Donations $ 4,679 Gift Shop Sales $ 6,233 Fundraisers $24,660 Grants $25,835 Total Revenue $67,396

EXPENSES

Education/Conference $ 75 College Scholarship $ 100 Postage $ 165 Miscellaneous $ 197 Sales Tax $ 204 Legal/Professional Fees $ 255 Annual Meeting $ 587 Volunteer and Docent $ 629 Exhibits/Preservation $ 778 Dues and Subscriptions $ 1,122 Supplies/Operation $ 1,170 Telephone $ 1,573 Insurance $ 2,416 Office Equipment $ 2,473 Purchases for Resale $ 3,497 Advertising $ 3,561 Utilities $ 3,564 Maintenance $ 3,919 Fundraiser Expenses $15,174 Payroll $42,232 Total Expenses $83,691

Cindy

Kessler

SH & CA

Bookkeeper

M. Hohner of Germany Accordion Donor 1980-

61-048. Kenny Olsen

cancelled

Still Beautiful after all these years Pavilion Celebrates 25 years

The museum celebrated the 25th year anniversary with Teense Willford’s Wyoming Home Grown Band and members of the community. Sonja Collamer, Board President at the time and Betty Eaton were present. Current Board members and volunteers contributed appetizers and fun was had by all. The gazebo/pavilion on the Saratoga Museum grounds is one of the premier architectural structures

in the county. It is also one of the least used structures in the county. The reason being that it is

susceptible to the ever-changing weather in the Valley. It can be a beautiful day one minute and

gusty and rainy the next.

Kimberly Givens was able to secure a grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation for weather

curtains, taking the weather out of any decisions about where to hold an event. The curtains are

easy to close and have big windows allowing for great views and plenty of light.

In April as an introduction to the public we are planning box lunches and instruction In plein air paint-

ing, fly tying and gardening for canning. These lunches are intended to introduce interested persons

to the advantages of the “controlled environment” at the gazebo. The lunches are tentatively sched-

uled for a Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the same week with a reminder notice online, on radio &

in the Saratoga Sun. It is our hope that these introductions will get the word out about the improve-

ments at the gazebo and in turn generate more bookings for the spring, summer and fall seasons

throughout the year.

Hold Onto Your Hat Saving Precious Memories

At the Museum’s Annual Dinner May 11, 2019, fea-tured speakers John and Richard Perue described an extensive project called “Hold Onto Your Hat”. It will preserve the Valley’s audio and visual documents by creating digital copies. Dick Perue has a treasure house of negatives, photographs, audio, video cas-settes and articles held by the Museum and individu-als. The Martin/Perue collection alone numbers over 10,000 negatives and photographs.

Why create computerized records of these arti-facts? Photos fade and tapes disintegrate. Memories also fade and many items need to be identified. Stor-age is a problem, with no museum volunteering to house them. Computerization also means organiza-tion and that means access.

Once the data base is active, copies will be held at the Museum, with the Perues and at the American Heritage Center in Laramie. This will allow search and research by the public. Cloud storage is also an option.

Items slated for computer entry include: photo-graphs and other documents in the Martin/Perue col-lection; VHS tapes of tours, presentations and inter-views; the Museum’s photographs, cassettes and other items; Elva Evans’ history columns and Judy Hodges’ obituary collection. The project grows con-tinually as people donate additional items.

The Perues are in the early stages of the project, with “Dick” scanning photos and John creating a file system into which each item can be entered with all its pertinent details. Once this file system exists, vol-unteers will be needed to enter the actual data. Be ready to volunteer to save our valley’s history.

Museum supporters and His-tory enthusiasts listening to Dick Perue (right) before a cemetery trek.

Board of Directors

President - Connie Patterson – 2021 Secretary – Linda Fisher-Perue – 2020 Sherry MacKay – 2020 Mark Shipp – 2022 Roger Snell – 2022 unexpired term of Josh Wood

Volunteers What are the words to

really express: Thank You? To all who give their volun-

tary labor of love for an un-paid, yet most cordial, gra-cious and cheerful deed of service. You give information to all visitors and friends while being host/hostess at our Saratoga Museum. I thank each and every one of you. We are not only delighted but are most grateful.

The museum was opened from late May through Labor Day, every day from 10 to 4 pm and Sundays 10-2 pm with two persons on duty having all who visit register, give a wel-come and any free material

avai l-able, showing items for sale. Their donations are deeply ap-preciated. Come and be instru-mental towards the betterment of our town and museum. YOU, men, women, families and teen-agers—can assist and support our museum in several catego-ries. Please don’t hesitate. Call 307-326-5511…We need your input. Your grassroots make an awesome museum. Thanks to Dick Perue for assisting in publi-cation of newsletter.

If you are interested in a position on the

SH & CA board of directors, please submit your

vision in writing concerning the future of our

museum. Please mail to:

SH & CA, Box 1131, Saratoga, WY 82331

or email to saratogamuseum@gmail.com.

Wish List

Items on our wish list include: 2 - 48,000 Btu floor standing heaters (for the pavilion events) $250 each 3 archival mannequins for clothes displays $500+ each <> Memorial donation to the endowment fund <> New sprinkling system for the pavilion $500 <> New signs North and South of town $500 each for design and installment.

Roger & Wanda S n e l l , D o n n a Younger & Don Owens volunteer-ing at the rodeo gates.

Gene McDowell and

Everett Grubb contem-

plating moving the

new shed

COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything including our treks

Revised—Proposed History Treks for Saratoga Museum in 2020:

Sat., Aug. 8th —Downtown walking tour along Bridge Street west of Bridge Street Bridge.

Joint sponsorship and effort with Saratoga Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce to relate history plus to introduce new

Chamber manager. Tour guides will be Stacy Crimmins of Chamber and Dick Perue of Saratoga Museum. Assisting will

be Kimberly Givens Museum director and new chamber director Leanna Jones. With all the new business owners in Sara-

toga, this trek will give the public a chance to meet them as well as relate the history of the main business district. This

may be so popular that it might take two days with a social in the evening. We need to keep the trek crowd to 50 and less.

Suggested $20 each plus donations with proceeds going to Saratoga Museum. Originally scheduled for early June.

Saratoga Lumber Mill,

Frazier Place & Saratoga

Lake—Sat. Aug. 29th

Stressing the history of the timber and lumber

industry with a visit to the sawmill on the east

end of Bridge Street, followed by a tour of two

small farms north of the mill site—Fraizer &

Leavengood places—and concluding with a visit

to the Saratoga Lake. Tour guide Dick Perue will

be joined by many of those who have helped with

treks over the years. More information will be

released closer to the tour date. $20 or more do-

nation to the Saratoga Historical & Cultural Assn.

appreciated.

Originally scheduled for early August.

Postponed until 2021:

Ryan Park Ski course,

Barrett Ridge Ski Jump,

Town of Ryan Park,

WWII POW Camp,

& surrounding area

Originally scheduled for Aug. 29th, 2020

Hopefully we will be able to produce videos

of all these treks so videos can be shown

throughout the year

Director’s Report By Kimberly Givens

My most favorable moment in 2019 was walking through the museum doors as the Director again. I am always ready for new challenges and this year was no exception! I am very goal oriented. Give me a goal and I will start planning how to achieve the goal, step by step. My first challenge was building the museum membership. Memberships, donations and grants, as you probably know, are the base of our operating expenses. The Board is pleased at the response you gave when sending in your membership/ donations. I felt if I kept the membership reachable for young families and sen-

iors the membership base would grow. Thank you to the members who were able to add donations with your dues. This is HUGE in our museum.

My second goal was obtaining grants to help with funding the director’s salary, fundraising events and museum preservation. Five grants were applied for this year. The one I am most excited about is the grant provided by Wyoming Community Foundation (WCF) for our inclement curtains for our beautiful pavilion. If we have inclement weather with a planned event in the pavilion, we will be able to close the curtains and keep out the weather. Curtains have a clear window with which to see the outside beauty when closed. The next grant we applied for and received from Carbon County Recreation Board #2 was for our research area. We will have a new desktop computer for patrons to use which will have the research Dick and John Perue are preserving. If you would like to donate to the “Hold On To Your Hats” please earmark the donation for this project.

The museum is coming back to life. You can thank Sherry MacKay, who is my constant volunteer, for putting your museum to rights again. She has researched and labeled numerous unknown arti-facts so when people walk through the museum they can enjoy the history of Saratoga. The black-

smith shop is one such endeavor. We learned about wains-wright tools and blacksmith tools from Don Herold. With new lighting, people were so surprised at how nice and labeled our blacksmith shop is. A much needed fishing display is back up and a wonderful display on Wyoming Women’s suffrage. During the winter months we have 4 new displays for the upcoming season 2020. An O gauge model train dis-play, a wonderful musical instrument display with research on each piece. We have a violin over 100 years old, a millenary shop with 2 hats from the late 1800’s and a handmade mountain man attire displayed standing at the Hotel Wolf Bar.

Another feat accomplished this year was a new building for the Tie Hack Display! At one point, the red shed was to be the home of the tie hack display. What a surprise, when I received a phone call from a gentleman who had come to the Gema Pearl benefit concert, saying he would bring us an original tie hack building from Ryan Park and put it up with windows and roof….as a donation to the museum. Thank you Blake Gearhart!

The Chamber Social celebrating 25 years with the Saratoga Pavilion was a lot of fun. Music by Wyoming Home Grown, good food and friends talking about the museum and things they would like to see.

The Gema Pearl Benefit concert was amazing. With the help of Laura Morrow and sponsors we were able to put on a fabulous meet and greet and an awesome con-cert. Gema Pearl has graciously offered to have another benefit concert this year to

help the museum.

Members had a great time at our Cemetery Trek with Dick Perue and our trivia night is becoming quite the weekend for people coming to Saratoga to play and win the Joe Pickett trivia contest. There was lots of fun, laughter and hard thinking for some….others were just glad they were on a great team! Thanks to the Bear Trap for a wonderful buffet dinner.

This year I would like to see music and more arts in the Pavilion. Bring a sack lunch and regroup for your afternoon or enjoy an evening of music and dinner at the pavilion. Chris D’Amico is helping with this project. He is lining up arts and music ( maybe some Celtic) .

It takes time, planning, grants and money. We are working to bring your mu-

Museum volunteer

Mary Pigg and her

famous cookies.

Volunteer Sherry MacKay giving the blacksmith shop a cleaning. A Must-see...everything is labeled and identified

Gema Pearl meeting with Kimberly &

Laura M

Sarah and Kimberly Givens showing how to use

the selfie frame at the Toast to History.

DONATIONS We have received some really cool donations this

year. A homemade bullet chest with pull out drawers was made by Mr. Paul Boden who lived at Jack Creek. This was donated by Leslie Johnson as well as old signs from Saratoga (I am using old signs in the Tie Hack building).

What does a train depot museum need? A train display. Thanks to a private donor and Sherry Mac-Kay we now have a researched train display.

We have received remarkable items this year. Thank you to all who think of us with donations spe-cific to Saratoga!

Fundraising 2019 Fund raising efforts this year where well received

by our community. Toast to History is one fund-raiser we couldn’t hold without the support of our res-taurants and stores and volunteers in the valley. We would also like to mention people who donated to our Silent Auctions. Thank you to all who donated and participated.

We have this beautiful soul in our valley that walked into Laura M Gallery and told Laura she wanted to do some-thing special for our val-ley. The beautiful soul was Susan Scholz aka Gema Pearl. Thank you all who sponsored and welcomed Gema Pearl and her All Star Band. It was a fun and very successful night. This year Gema will be singing the Blues on August 14th. Once again, all proceeds will benefit the Saratoga Museum.

Treks…..Everyone wants to go on a Trek by Dick Perue! 2019 Trek was to the Saratoga Cemeteries and what history he unveiled. We drove to the Sara-toga Cemetery, where we saw a slide show and Kenny Swanson gave a wonderful history lesson. Thank you!

Our last fundraiser brought in the most people from out of town. People love Joe Pickett. We were lucky to have CJ and Laurie Box in person at our event. It was held at The Yard. Thank you Cindy Bloomquist and Chris Shannon for donating your place. It was fun with a lot of laughs. You don’t have to know all the books just make sure you hook up with a great table. The Bear Trap provided the great smoked brisket and the weather was wonderful! Stay tuned for the location of the Joe Pickett contest!

Jimmy Campbell showing how it is done at the Toast

to History! Fundraiser!

Master Violet Ray #11. A form of this donation

is still in use today. Do you know what it is?

An O gauge post war train display An anonymous donor donated an O scale post war Lionel train set 1946 -1969 with 2 engines. We also received a collection of HO scale building models and were able to save the Model Railroader maga-zines from Peter Storer.

ATTENTION! Your Saratoga Museum is

NOW OPEN

2020 Museum Hours

10 am—4 pm Tuesday—Saturday 10 am—2 pm Sunday

Tours available for your Saratoga History!

Save these Dates for 2020

May 23—Start of the Summer Season August 1— Annual Dinner August 8—Trek: Downtown walking tour with guide Dick Perue July 7—October—Farmers Market and Craft Fair every Tuesday from 3—6 pm August 14—Gema Sings the Blues Benefit concert August 29—Trek: Saratoga Saw Mill, Frazier Place and Saratoga Lake September 5—Joe Pickett Trivia Contest

Visit www.saratoga-museum.com for details on events

Become a supporting member

of the Saratoga Historical &

Cultural Association

We are a non-profit organiza-tion operated mostly by vol-unteer effort,

totally depend-ent upon mem-berships, me-

morials, grants and donations

for support.

Tax exempt # 51-0172723

Please help save our heritage

Donations made be made to

SH&CA, Box 1131, Saratoga, WY 82331 or Saratoga Museum

Opening Day Tom Mans-field raising our flag

Saratoga Historical & Cultural Association

P.O. Box 1131, 104 E. Constitution Ave

Saratoga, WY 82331

www.saratoga-museum.com

307-326-5511

CORONAVIRUS DELAYED ISSUE OF

Saratoga Historical & Cultural Association

The Lyre MAY 2020

Dear Friends: Original information for this newsletter was prepared in April before the

COVID-19 crisis hit and everything was shutdown. This “Lyre” was just updated in order to

let you know what is happening at your Saratoga Museum. Read, enjoy, join & come visit!