Time is Running Out to See Fort Caspar Exhibit on the 11th Cavalry

If you have not yet seen the exhibit “Soldiers of the Republic: Stories of the 11th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry,” time is running out.

Organized by Fort Caspar Museum, this display about the cavalry unit posted to Platte Bridge Station—now Fort
Caspar—when Caspar Collins died in a battle will close on February 24, 2024.

Museum staff worked with museums in Kansas and private collectors to bring in objects for this exhibit. See artifacts owned and used by the troops at Fort Caspar that have not been here since 1865.

Local historian and author Johanna Wickman helped organize the exhibit and says, “Visitors will see items on view that were involved in the very battles that gave Casper its name.”

On view are 19th-century tintype photographs, firearms, shoulder insignias, a saddle, guidon flag, arrows from the Battle of Platte Bridge, and more.

Fort Caspar Museum is located at 4001 Fort Caspar Road in Casper.

Wyoming Black History in Pictures

Some of these pictures are part of a collection of photographs and negatives created and used by the Casper Star Tribune from 1967 until the middle of 1995 according to a newspaper article on the donation from February of 2000. In the words of Special Collections Curator, Kevin Anderson, the photographs serve to document "events in our own lives, events in our own history." Others come from a collection of photographs of people who lived in Casper's Sand Bar as found in the Walter R. Jones Papers available in and through the repository. Many others came from the Casper College Western History Center and the Wyoming State Archives from a wide-variety of original sources.

Gallery Credit: Kolby Fedore, Townsquare Media

Pictures from Fort Caspar's Candlelight Christmas Event 2022

Gallery Credit: Sam Haut, Townsquaremedia

Categories: Casper News