Visiting Rock Springs Historical Museum, Rock Springs, WY

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Rock Springs was a coal town. Or more accurately a Union Pacific company town that once rollicked on Saturday nights with countless saloons and vice serving miners. The mines are closed and tunnels filled in. Rock Springs is now a quiet town off the interstate that is preserving what remains of its turn of the century downtown. There is a fine local historical museum housed in the 1894 city hall, an impressive two story sandstone structure with a corner turret. The hall housed city offices, jail and fire department until 1983. An extensive restoration peeled away numerous remodels in returning the building close to its original appearance. Admission is free so it is a good deal as the displays and artifacts are many. You can walk around the small dank jail cells. Old uniforms, badges and guns are displayed. Did you know Butch Cassidy worked at a Rock Springs butcher shop in 1889 under the name George Cassidy. The adjacent fire hall housed horse stalls and the fire chief lived on the second floor. Featured are the expected old equipment like fire alarms and a hose carriage. Coal was king in Rock Springs and the exhibition room is packed with everything coal related: lamps, tools, gas masks, scales, drills and hard hats. Mining process and history is related. Visitors can enter a walk in city vault where typewriters, adding machines and other outdated office equipment has been stashed. An odds and ends room has items ranging from vintage local business signs to a 1920s meat slicer. The second floor focuses on home town life and this is where you will find a huge variety of vintage clothes, appliances, trunks, chests, toys etc. A full size doctor’s office has been recreated. Local history museums are common in small town America particularly in the Midwest. Rock Springs is a nice one especially if you enjoy experiencing a bit of the past.