I've photographed Ft. Caspar a zillion times, but of course I can't find any of my photos of the post itself right now. Anyhow, the restoration of the grounds (the post was burned down tot he ground after it was evacuated following Red Cloud's War) is excellent, and it appears much as it did in this drawing.
News has appeared in the Casper Star Tribune that the City of Casper is pondering closing the Fort Casper Museum for the winter months.
This is, of course, a pondered budgetary move. The thought is that by closing the museum during the winter months, when attendance is at its lowest, the City will save money on what is a city park. After all, I suppose, various other city facilities, like the swimming pools, are closed during the winter months.
Of course others, like the ski areas, are open. But then they would be.
Anyhow, this is a potential mistake.
Ft. Caspar has gone from being a really second rate facility with a collection of really first rate restored buildings to being one of the best local museums in the state. When I was a kid the nicely restored buildings, which had been restored for decades, were filled with collections of absolute junk. Some buildings had nothing in them at all. Some had piles of old trash, the donated valuables of people who had thought they were valuable whether they were or not. Some really were. Others were trash.
Some were odd. There was, for example, the bones of an infants hand, probably an Indian infant, that somebody found out in the prairie. Sad, but something that isn't really properly on display next to dishes and kettles and the like, if on display at all.
Then the town built a modern museum and hired a curator. Things improved massively all the way around. All the buildings were put in the form that they original were in the 1860s. I.e., infantry barracks were once again displayed as infantry barracks, with infantry items in them as if the infantrymen were still there. The same for cavalry barracks. The same for officers quarters, and so on. It was very well done.
Post cemetery, Fort Caspar. The graves themselves were moved when the Army consolidated its Frontier cemeteries. . .although bodies still occasionally occur and all of the dead from the nearby Battle of Red Buttes remain missing.
In the museum itself, displays change over time, the way a museum of this type should properly have it. Themes for displays are had. Various distinct presentations are made throughout the year on an annual basis. A book about the fort, a very good one, was commissioned. The museum bookstore is one of the best western bookstores in the state, rivaling the one at Ft. Laramie.
And now we read, in the Casper Star Tribune:
There may be fewer opportunities to visit Fort Caspar Museum next fall.
City officials are discussing seasonal closures at the facility as part of an ongoing effort to reduce Casper’s spending, said City Manager Carter Napier. Staff members are working on a recommendation for the City Council and plan to present the proposal within the next three months.
I hope that they don't do it.
I haven't commented much on the City of Casper's budget woes or the tasks of the City Council recently as I don't comment much on local politics as a rule. I don't envy city councilmen their tasks in tough budgetary times. And I'll freely concede that there isn't a thing that the city does that somebody doesn't have a vested interest in. People like me, have a vested interest in history. People who ski, have a vested interest in Hogadon, which the city also owns. And so on.
But, having said that, places that loose their history have really lost something. And Wyoming has a highly transient population that is somewhat disinterested in its history to start with. Closing the museum for the winter would sooner or later mean the loss of the curator and the decline of the museum. It'd be inevitable. And that's a mistake in general. In an era in which one of the current political candidates maintains that tourism is one leg of the three legged stool of the Wyoming economy, and in which I think it's one of the legs of a four legged stool, its a particularly bad idea. Casper has to be more than an economic crossroads if it wants to have a semi stable economy.
Indeed, my feeling on this is strong enough that I'd be tempted to suggest that maybe Fort Caspar would be better off as a state park. But Wyoming in fact closes all of its historical sites for the winter and they all suffer because of it. Sites like Fort Fetterman or Fort Phil Kearney are great sites, but they are seasonal and they show it. Natrona County would seemingly be a logical candidate to take over, as Fort Casper isn't really a purely Casper site. Mills Wyoming is on the other side of the river and is where most of the Battle of Platte Bridge Station, and all of the Battle of Red Buttes (really the same battle) were fought. The Oregon Trail itself on this location crossed from what's now Casper into Mills. Richard's Bridge, a small post some miles away is located in what is now Evansville Wyoming. All of these locations are county sites of historical importance but they are not administered that way. Nonetheless, Natrona County simply doesn't administer historical parks and I can't see it doing so now. So it's up to the town.
And the town is short of cash.
Not so short, I suppose, that it didn't construct a big downtown plaza last year, which it is still working on this year. So money can be found for some things. I suppose it depends on what is important to you and what you think it achieves.
For people who value history in the state, the Fort Caspar Museum is important. I hope they keep it open year around.
