By Dana Davis

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

Compiled with information provided by Tom Mensik

The Carbon County Museum reported record attendance, expanded public access to its collections and increased community engagement in 2025, according to its year-end newsletter.

By  Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

This Christmas season, it is always a challenge to find gifts for friends and loved ones that they will appreciate. Calendars for the year to come are often a great item and this year, the Saratoga/Ryan Park Museum Tax District Board has a historical one that has interesting pictures and stories about Ryan Park.

By Dana Davis

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

A National Historic Register plaque has been installed at the home of Nancy Anderson in Encampment, honoring the legacy of Wyoming author and photographer Lora Webb Nichols. The installation was completed by Zane Jacobson of Doggett Greenhouse.

By Mike Armstrong   

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

Press Release

Hanna Basin Museum

The Hanna Basin Museum and the Hanna Cemetery Board invite the community to join in a day of fun, food, and fundraising at the Chili Cook-off Fundraiser on Saturday, November 1, 2025, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hanna Basin Museum. The event will raise funds to support the preservation and ongoing work of both the museum and the historic Hanna Cemetery.

By Dana Davis

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

The sounds of surf, country and rockabilly drifted across the grounds of the Grand Encampment Museum on Sunday, September 21, as the Poudre Valley Playboys from Fort Collins, Colorado, performed at the museum’s historic caboose.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

J. P. Cavigelli is leading a dinosaur digging expedition from the Tate Museum out of Casper, which is a little different from the other expeditions that have been going on during the summer.

Originally from Massachusetts, he lived and worked in Laramie for 14 years and is now in Casper, where he has been for twenty years.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

“The track we are driving on now is made by the first dinosaur people,” Aart Walen, a paleontologist who is Dutch, but who has worked for museums all over the world, explained. “The old track led to Como Station and the bones would have been hauled on the track we are looking at.”

By Dana Davis

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

On Saturday, July 26, the Grand Encampment Museum welcomed visitors to step back in time for its annual Living History Day, where the scent of wood smoke and homemade ice cream mingled with the clang of antique machinery and the laughter of children in a stick horse rodeo.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

Tim Nicklas, Director of the Grand Encampment Museum (GEM) has been in his position since 2018 and he has always felt the museum was a great place to film movies or documentaries.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

Tina Hill, Director of the historic Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins, was happy with how successful the ‘Sunset in the Slammer’ was going as people turned up for disc golf, food trucks, vendors, music and of course, tours of the prison.

The event has turned into an annual celebration, but according to Hill, it actually started because of another event.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

It has been a long time coming. Years in fact. The Fossil Cabin Museum near Como Bluff, only a few miles outside the town of Medicine Bow, is getting closer to its new home at the Medicine Bow Museum. As of July 23, the foundations were started. 

By K.J. Schricker

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

What was once the Saratoga Museum’s Frozen Fore Ice Golf Scramble melted into something entirely new and successful.

By Mike Armstrong

Reporter, Carbon County Comet

Carbon County Museum Director Tom Mensik was extremely excited on June 5 because he was showing off his newest exhibit in the area of the museum garage.

The garage, sometimes overlooked, but definitely should not be, is now housing a mammoth skull.