History & News

A Wild Bunch Winchester at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum

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Henry Rhodes "Bub" Meeks, Inmate #574 at the Idaho State Penitentiary (Idaho State Archives Photo)

Bub Meeks’s .25-35 Model 1894 Winchester rifle, currently on exhibit at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River (Sweetwater County Historical Museum Photo)

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - October 29, 2021)     WyoHistory.org, the Wyoming State Historical Society’s online encyclopedia, recently posted “Bub Meeks and a Wild Bunch Winchester,” by Dick Blust of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum staff.

The article covers the story of Henry Rhodes "Bub" Meeks, a lesser-known member of the loose network of outlaws known as Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, or the “Hole in the Wall Gang.”

In its collection, the museum has a rifle believed to have been Meeks’s:  a Model 1894 Winchester lever-action carbine chambered for the .25-35 cartridge.

Meeks was something of a “hard luck” outlaw. On August 13, 1896, he, Cassidy, and a third outlaw named Elzy Lay robbed the Montpelier Bank in Montpelier, Idaho, and got away with $7,000. The following year, with two different accomplices, Meeks robbed a store in Fort Bridger, but this time he was caught, found guilty at trial for the Montpelier holdup, and sentenced to 35 years in the Idaho State Penitentiary.

What followed for Meeks over the next seven years was a series of attempts at escape and suicide. During one attempted escape, a prison guard shot him in the leg, which was later amputated. Declared insane, he was committed to the Idaho Insane Asylum. In 1903, he stole his doctor’s horse and escaped to his family’s ranch in Uinta County, Wyoming. Idaho authorities, though, showed little interest in a recapture and left him unmolested.

In June 1911, Meeks was traveling in Wasatch County, Utah, with an ex-convict named Ab Murdock when Murdock was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff. Meeks fled north toward Wyoming, but his horse gave out in the Uinta Mountains. Walking north on a peg leg and carrying a heavy single-shot rifle, he encountered two sheepherders. One of them traded Meeks the museum’s Winchester for his single-shot.

Meeks was committed to the Wyoming State Hospital for the Insane in Evanston, where he died just over a year later. The rifle was recovered by Joe Davenport, who served as a deputy sheriff in Moffat County, Colorado, and Sweetwater County, Wyoming, and as a police officer in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Currently on display at the County Museum, the carbine was donated in 1970 by Margaret Roe, the widow of Dr. T.H. Rowe, Mayor of Rock Springs from 1941 to 1945. Sweetwater County Historical Museum Director Dave Mead said the article - and many others devoted to Wyoming history - can be found on the WyoHistory.org website at

www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/bub-meeks-and-wild-bunch-winchester .

The Sweetwater County Historical 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.        

Museum fields inquiry about 1920s Rock Springs

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(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - October 27, 2021)     Roger Varley of Point of Rocks recently contacted the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River with an inquiry concerning the museum’s article and Facebook post about the steel wagon bridge that once ran across Bitter Creek, connecting K Street with Pilot Butte Avenue. What, he asked, was the feature or structure on the Sanborn Map that appeared to extend out over Bitter Creek southeast (upstream) of the bridge?

Museum staff have determined that the structure was a stable at the end of an alley, further that a stable had existed at that particular spot going back as far as 1904. (The Sanborn map used in the article is dated 1920.)

Staff members also noted that the stable is marked “ON POSTS.”  In the days when Bitter Creek ran through downtown Rock Springs, many buildings along its channel were constructed on posts driven into the ground instead of conventional foundations.

For many years, Bitter Creek was an eyesore and a sanitation problem, as it was little more than a garbage dump. In the mid-1920s, Mayor Chris Bunning headed up the effort to rechannel the creek to its present course and clean the area up. One result was creation of a fine new park northwest of the wagon bridge, which later came to bear his name:   Bunning Park.

Museum carries on its annual Day of the Dead tradition

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(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - October 21, 2021)     The Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River is continuing a special autumn tradition with a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) ofrenda. As featured in the animated Walt Disney film Coco, Día de los Muertos is a holiday for honoring the dead which originated in Mexico but is now celebrated in many countries and regions. Celebrants create ofrendas (offerings) using items such as food, flowers, photos, and sugar skulls.

Museum volunteer Emilio Sanchez of Green River created this year’s ofrenda exhibit at the museum.

Typically Día de los Muertos begins on October 31 and lasts through November 2. The Museum’s ofrenda, however, will be on display through the first week of November.

Anyone who would like to make an offering to deceased loved ones, friends, or celebrities may do so anytime during the museum's business hours. The offering can be as simple as a photo of your loved one or you may bring more elaborate items you have decorated for Día de los Muertos. Please keep in mind that this is a public display and the Sweetwater County Historical Museum is not responsible for lost or stolen items.

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

Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit in Green River Closing Soon

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(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - October 19, 2021)      The Sweetwater County Historical Museum’s special exhibit at the Green River Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center, “Crossroads: Change in Rural America,” will have its last day on Thursday, October 21.

Presented in cooperation with Wyoming Humanities / thinkWY and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, “Crossroads” examines the evolving landscape of rural America, including special display banners that feature Sweetwater County’s communities, including Rock Springs, Green River, Superior, Point of Rocks, Wamsutter, Little America, Granger,

McKinnon-Washam, Bairoil, Farson-Eden, and Reliance. There is no charge for admission.

Museum Director Dave Mead explained that “Crossroads” is a traveling exhibit and is closing two days early due to scheduling conflicts and shipping issues. The exhibit is set for display at five other communities in Wyoming through June 18, 2022; the Homesteaders Museum in Torrington, beginning October 27, 2021, the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne, in January 2022, the Nicolaysen Museum at Casper College, February 2022, the Homesteader Museum in Powell, March 2022, and the Converse County Library in Douglas, May 2022.

Over 1,300 people have visited the exhibit since it opened on September 11. The Visitor’s Center is currently on winter hours, which are Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM.