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Excellent turnout for “Family Fun Friday - Fabulous Fossils” at County Museum

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Public Engagement Coordinator Aidan Brady stands at a table of items under a canopy. An audience of people gathers around the canopy.Left groups of children dig in sandpits under canopies. Right, real paleontologists dig at a dig site.People of all ages mingle around the Museum's gallery.

Photo #1 - Aidan Brady of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum describing prehistoric life in Sweetwater County at Friday’s “Family Fun Friday - Fabulous Fossils” event.

 

Photo #2 - Children at the Museum’s special event on Friday got hands-on experience in digging their own fossils, just as paleontologists do at actual dig sites.

 

Photo #3 - Many who attended Friday’s event toured the Museum afterward. Gallery exhibits include prehistoric life in Sweetwater County, Native Americans, the mountain men, frontier-era emigrants, ranching, coal and trona mining, the Lincoln Highway, the Chinese in Rock Springs, the railroad, and John Wesley Powell’s expeditions down the Green and Colorado Rivers and through the Grand Canyon.

 

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - July 19, 2022)    The Sweetwater County Historical Museum’s latest special event was attended by over a hundred people.

On Friday, the Museum hosted “Family Fun Friday - Fabulous Fossils,” an outdoor event. Public Engagement Coordinator Aidan Brady spoke about Wyoming’s prehistoric and geological history, and described the dinosaurs that once roamed Sweetwater County.

Children at the event got to handle and explore variety of fossils, including Knightias, which are Wyoming’s official State Fossil, and learned firsthand how paleontologists use trowels, brushes, and screens to dig and sift for fossils in a dig pit.

Other family-friendly events are planned at the Museum for the near future, including gold panning, adobe brick making, and Native American basket weaving.

The Museum is located at 3 E. Flaming Gorge Way in Green River. Hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Tuesday through Saturday, and admission is free.

Black Buttes Snapshot

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Left: a black and white photo of men dressed in suits in front of a building labeled 'Bitter Creek' Right: people in various outfits stand around and inside a horse drawn wagon. Text reads:'located about 27 miles East of Rock Springs, the tiny hamlet of Black Buttes was once an overland stage station, a Union Pacific Railroad stop, and home to several coal mining operations. From 1890 to 1919, it had its own post office. During its stage stop years it was noted that 'creek water here so bad that oatmeal was added by the station cook to hide the alkali taste.' Nothing is left now of Black Buttes but the remains of a few building foundations.'

A Rock Springs Snapshot

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A man stands in front of a vintage vehicle on a street in a suit. text reads: 'Jack Taucher, a Union Pacific Coal Company Pit Loader at No. 8 Mine in Rock Springs with his UPCC Grand Prize Safety Award for the last 6 months of 1940. A brand new Chevrolet Master Deluxe sedan. According to an April, 1941 article, Taucher, 53 years old at the time, 'has never owned a car before and has never driven one, but he says he is really going to enjoy this one.' The article went on to say Taucher was 'married with two children, Fred and Katherine.''

Descendants of Powell Expedition members visit county museum

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Sweetwater County Historical Museum Executive Director Dave Mead, at left, and Eric Peterson, whose 2nd great grandfather was Frank Goodman, who signed on with John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition in Green River stand before a cutout of the John Wesley Powell statue which sits outside the Museum.Elijah Manzer points to a photograph of his 3rd great-grandfather, Stephen Vandiver Jones, a member of John Wesley Powell’s 1871 expedition, taken on Expedition Island in Green River.A colorized photo of Frank Goodman with his family, taken in later yearsStephen Vandiver JonesJohn Wesley Powell, who led both the 1869 and 1871 expeditions from Green River through the Grand Canyon, despite the loss of his arm during the Civil War

Photo #1 - Sweetwater County Historical Museum Executive Director Dave Mead, at left, and Eric Peterson, whose 2nd great grandfather was Frank Goodman, who signed on with John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition in Green River

 

Photo #2 - Elijah Manzer points to a photograph of his 3rd great-grandfather, Stephen Vandiver Jones, a member of John Wesley Powell’s 1871 expedition, taken on Expedition Island in Green River

 

Photo #3 - A colorized photo of Frank Goodman with his family, taken in later years.   (Courtesy of Eric Peterson. Used with thanks)

 

Photo #4 - Stephen Vandiver Jones   (Williams-Grand Canyon News photo. Used with thanks)

 

Photo #5 - John Wesley Powell, who led both the 1869 and 1871 expeditions from Green River through the Grand Canyon, despite the loss of his arm during the Civil War

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - June 27, 2022)      Two men descended from members of Major John Wesley Powell’s epic river expeditions of 1869 and 1871 down the Green and Colorado Rivers and the Grand Canyon recently visited the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River.

Eric Peterson of San Marcos, Texas, is the 2nd great grandson of Frank Goodman, who took part in Powell’s first (1869) expedition. A young Englishman who fought during the Civil War with the New Jersey Volunteers and afterward became a trapper for the Hudson’s Bay Company in British Columbia, Goodman actually met Powell for the first time in Green River and was there recruited, the last man to join up for that original trip.

Elijah Manzer, Brookings, South Dakota, is the 3rd great grandson of Stephen Vandiver Jones, an Illinois teacher and school principal, was one of the 1871 expedition’s “topographical assistants” to Almon Thompson, a cartographer and entomologist.

While ten men in four boats left what was then called Green River City on May 24, 1869, only six completed the journey - three months of hardship, treacherous rapids, near-drownings, and loss of boats that covered some 900 miles. On August 28, only two days before the expedition reached its destination, the mouth of the Virgin River, three men, brothers Oramel and Seneca Howland and Bill Dunn, left on foot and were never seen again. There are several theories about their disappearance; many historians believe they were killed by hostile Indians.

The three were not the first to leave. Since the departure from Green River City, Goodman’s performance had been less than stellar, and in July he told Powell he wished to leave. The two parted on good terms. Eventually, Goodman made his way to Vernal, Utah, where he settled down and raised a family.

Soldier, scientist, educator, explorer, geologist, ethnologist, and writer, Powell, who lost is right arm fighting for the Union at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, was appointed the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1881, a post he held for 13 years. He died in 1902. 

The museum has an extensive series of exhibits on Powell, his expeditions, and his life and achievements. The museum is located at 3 E. Flaming Gorge Way in Green River. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and admission is free.

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