Trails Center to Showcase Buffalo Soldiers Exhibit [AUDIO]

The Trails Center will showcase a Black History Month exhibit honoring the Buffalo Soldiers.

The Bureau of Land Management and the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center is recognizing Black History Month with a temporary exhibit entitled, "Buffalo Soldiers: Forgotten Troops of the Western Frontier."

Alex Rose is an interpreter for the Trails Center.

"There was a lot of black troops actually that fought in the civil war. And then, the Union Army started moving west to help keep law and order in the west. A lot of black soldiers in the civil war, they proved themselves in the battlefield, they proved themselves valuable to the Army. And so, the Army wanted to hang onto these black units. So, they came out west and you had black regiments out west."

Buffalo Soldiers were definitely no strangers to frontier Wyoming.

"There were Buffalo Soldiers that were actually posted throughout the state. Near Cheyenne, you had Buffalo Soldiers units that were stationed there. Near Buffalo, Fort McKinney, you had Buffalo Soldiers near Lander, Fort Washakie, in that area. So there were actually Buffalo Soldiers that were throughout the state at one time."

The exhibit is designed to highlight the Buffalo soldiers' often overshadowed contributions to U.S. and Wyoming history.

"That's one of the reasons why we called it Buffalo Soldiers: Forgotten Troops of the Western Frontier, because, you look at Hollywood, black cavalry troops are basically excluded from Hollywood and excluded from the mainstream media in mainstream American culture when there were so many of them out here. So that's one of the reasons why we created this exhibit to give them the credit that they deserve and earned."

The Exhibit was created by the Trails Center staff and will run for the entire month of February.

"So it's an exciting exhibit, it's a one of a kind exhibit, and we're proud to have it and we hope to have a lot of folks come and see it during the month of February."

Click to hear more from Alex Rose about Buffalo Soldiers and the exhibit.