Council expects visitor boom after making Ft. Caspar a Pony Express destination

CASPER, Wyo. — The Casper City Council gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up Tuesday to the project of acquiring a large collection of Pony Express artifacts, documents, and art to be displayed at an expanded Fort Caspar Museum.

The consultants behind the study heard Tuesday said that heritage tourism related to sites and artifacts of Westward Expansion is on the rise, and that turning Casper into a Pony Express tourist destination would easily double attendance at the museum and add over $3 million annually to the local economy.

Melissa Prycer, consultant for Strategic Venue Studies and author of the year-long study, told council at a work session Tuesday that though the Pony Express was in service for 18 months, it still holds an outsized impact on the public imagination, as evidenced the annual Pony Express re-rides.

The late historian and collector Joe Nordone was recognized as the preeminent authority on the time and had amassed a collection over 40 years, Prycer said. His widow, recognizing the authenticity of the reconstructed Fort Casper and associated Pony Express station at its original historical location, offered to donate the collection to Casper.

The city would take on the initial $10,000–$12,000 cost for transporting the collection from Laguna Beach, California, according to the council packet. City manager Carter Napier said that the city would ultimately need to contribute about $20,000 for transportation and fundraising agreements.

The Fort Caspar Museum Association would invest about $40,000 to catalog the collection and design an expansion to Fort Caspar for housing and display. That would also include completing the Tripeny Drug Store exhibit at the museum and a companion Pony Express exhibit in downtown Casper, Prycer said.

Visit Casper would then spend up to $50,000 hiring a consultant to lead the fundraising efforts for the $7 million to $10 million expansion at Fort Caspar, according to the packet.

Casper is well equipped to take advantage of those tourism dollars, and the expansion would pair with another initiative to get Natrona and Carbon counties designated by Congress as a National Heritage Area, Pryce said.

Rick Young, director of the Fort Caspar Musuem, told council that a launch could be expected between 2027 and 2028.

“We look forward in ‘28 [to] coming to see the new exhibit,” said Mayor Steve Cathey, echoing a sentiment of genuine enthusiasm from council.

“There’s so much more to understand and know about the Pony Express,” said Councilor Gena Jensen, who also serves asexecutive director of National Historic Trails Center. She said she’s encountered several authors who’ve ridden bicycles along the route from Missouri to California to support their research.

“We are constantly getting inquiries about the Pony Express Trail,” Jensen said, saying Trails Center gets up to 40,000 visitors a year. “Not everybody’s here for sports.”

Prycer and Young agreed that the national appeal meant a national pool of potential donors.

The Nordone collection itself includes items relating to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which dramatized the horseback delivery service. It also include an extensive archive of original documents, maps, bronze sculptures, saddles and mochilas, the saddle bags that held the letters.

“We’ll give you a call when the U-Haul comes to town,” Napier said.