After my overnight trip to Cody on Tuesday and my scenic drive home on Wednesday, Thursday I stuck close to home and visited the Pioneer Village on the north side of Lander. This is a collection of various buildings of historic significance which have been relocated from other parts of Lander, and other nearby towns and areas, to establish this very nice little “neighborhood” representing what life was like “back in the day”. There were two ladies, who are volunteers, in the “office” and were a wealth of knowledge, explaining the significance of many of the buildings and where around the area they had been located originally. There were also signs in front of each building explaining the history, and most of them were open so you could go inside and check them out.
This small church was originally located in Hudson, a small town between Lander and Riverton:
This cabin was where the first comprehensive history of the State of Wyoming was written back in 1899:
This is the “Stough House,” where Fremont County sheriff Charles Stough, who had the distinction of being the only law enforcement officer to actually arrest “Butch” Cassidy and put him on trial, lived.
This was the town Mercantile:
Just about every decent sized town had one – a variety store with a little bit of everything. These days we call that “Walmart”.
I didn’t post photos of all the buildings in the village, but in total it is a very nice collection which represents what a typical town in the American west was like.
This was where the local newspaper was originally located:
And this was the first building actually constructed to serve as a museum – built in 1909:
johnboystravelblog 