History & News

County Museum prepares for special exhibit at Courthouse

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Photo No. 1 - Formulating strategy for getting the Reynolds boat through the front doors at the Sweetwater County Courthouse. From left to right, Aidan Brady, Sweetwater County Historical Museum Public Engagement Coordinator; Alycia Luke, Uintah County Heritage Museum Assistant Curator; Randy Walker and Budd Allen, Sweetwater County Museum Board members; Dave Mead, Sweetwater County Historical Museum Director; Lana Fullbright, Uintah County Heritage Museum Curator; and Tammy Twitchell of Vernal, Utah.

Photo No. 2 -    ...and through the Community Room door

Photo No. 3 - A.K. Reynolds running the rapids of the Green River

Photo No. 4 - A.K. and Ellen Reynolds in the 1950s

Photo No. 5 - A.K. Reynolds partnered with his brother-in-law, Mike Hallacy, and C.C. “Lug” Larsen, to build the two boats. In preparation for a special river expedition around 1950, they painted REYNOLDS-HALLACY EXPEDITION on the sides of both. They could carry the oarsman, two passengers, and about 700 pounds of gear and supplies in covered compartments

Photo No. 6 - Flaming Gorge Dam under construction. A total of six years was required to complete it. 502 feet high and 1,285 feet long, it contains Flaming Gorge, with a capacity of over 3.7 million acre-feet of water.

Photo No. 7 - President John F. Kennedy initiating the power startup of Flaming Gorge Dam on September 27, 1963

Photo No. 8 - Flaming Gorge Dam, 1964

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - September 8, 2023)     It was literally “all hands on deck” this week when Sweetwater County Historical Museum staff and board members, along with Uintah County Heritage Museum staff, carefully moved a vintage 17-foot boat into the Sweetwater County Courthouse for a special exhibit that opens this month.

The hand-built wooden boat was one of a pair that belonged to river guide and outfitter A.K. Reynolds, son of Green River Star publisher Adrian Reynolds. A.K. and his wife Ellen owned and operated a river-running service in the years before Flaming Gorge Dam was completed. In 2021, the Reynolds family donated the boats to the Uintah County Heritage Museum in Vernal, Utah. The boat in the courthouse exhibit is on long-term loan to the Sweetwater County Historical Museum.

The new exhibit’s theme is a dual commemoration; of Reynolds’s legacy and the building of Flaming Gorge Dam. In keeping with that theme, the exhibit will open on September 27th, which is the 60^th anniversary of Flaming Gorge Dam going into operation. On that date in 1963, President John F. Kennedy stopped at the Salt Lake City Airport to dedicate the recently completed Flaming Gorge Dam. When the President pushed a buzzer on the podium, the sound was heard by telephone at the dam and Jean R. Walton, Project Construction Engineer, started the first generator and brought it to full speed.

The exhibit will feature Reynolds’s boat, photos from his river trips and other life events, plus photos of the construction and dedication of Flaming Gorge Dam. The exhibit will also include a continuous showing of the film Face Your Danger - The Story of A.K. Reynolds & the Cataract Boat, with footage from 1950s expeditions and the recent recovery of the boats and footage from the Bureau of Reclamation film Flaming Gorge.

Second graders visit County Museum

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(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - May 4, 2023)     The Sweetwater County Historical Museum hosted a special tour Thursday morning for second grade students from Harrison Elementary School in Green River. The Museum’s Public Engagement Coordinator, Aidan Brady, conducted the tour and answered many questions from the group about ranching, mining, mountain men, Native Americans, frontier immigrants, the Pony Express, the railroad, dinosaurs, the Lincoln Highway, and John Wesley Powell.

Educators, parents, and parent-teacher groups who are interested in learning more about museum programs for students Grades K - 12 are encouraged to contact Brady at (307) 872-6435 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A Riner Snapshot

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Green River High School hosts museum program

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Photo #1 - Sophomores got a chance to handle a powder horn, pelts, a bow and arrow, antlers, a beaver trap, and other period-authentic items during Aidan Brady’s mountain man-fur trade presentation at the Green River High School. Famed mountain man Jim Bridger, pictured here, founded a trading post at Fort Bridger in 1843.     

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - April 26, 2023)    In presentations throughout the day for 135 students attending the Green River High School’s sophomore Wyoming History class, mountain men and the fur trade were the topics of a recent Sweetwater County Historical Museum program.

The mountain man era of the early to mid 19^th century was an important one in Wyoming and Sweetwater County history. There was heavy demand for beaver pelts in the east and Europe to provide felt for men’s hats. Public Engagement Coordinator Aidan Brady described how every year, from 1825 to 1840, at different locations in Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho, mountain men, trappers, and Native Americans gathered at rendezvous to sell their furs, trade for supplies, and celebrate. The first rendezvous, in 1825, was staged on Henry’s Fork, three miles northeast of Burntfork and about 40 miles southwest of Green River in what is now Sweetwater County.

The most famous mountain men included Kit Carson, John Colter, Jedediah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Joseph Walker, and Jim Bridger, who established the trading post named for him in what became Uinta County, Wyoming, in 1843, now a Wyoming state historic site. Bridger was among the greatest of American frontiersman, and at least a dozen major landmarks in the west now bear his name.

Educators, parents, and parent-teacher groups who are interested in learning more about museum programs for students Grades K - 12 are encouraged to contact Brady at (307) 872-6435 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..