Douglas, WY - Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum and POW Camp

Finished Laundry so we stop at Jackalope Square.  

Tucson is quick to make friends

 Next stop is the Pioneer Museum

 I figured it would be a small little display but we were pleasantly surprised

It had 7 rooms upstairs and down.

The Pioneer Gallery features history, weapons and Military items

 The Fink Gallery had art, photography, clothing and china from 1850's to 1950's

 The Bar featuring a 1914 Brunswick Backbar from the Labonte Inn

 The Johnson Gallery incuded a major collection of North American Indian Art and artifacts

Including the TeePee from Dances with Wolves

This horse head carved from  basswood was amazing

The Main room downstairs houses period furniture and room displays, tools and a printing press

 A complete Salon but alas no one to cut our hair

 and finally over an hour later we enter the last room

The woman at the desk suggested we go to the POW museum.

We get there 1/2 hour before they close

 Construction of 180 buildings began early in 1942 and the first Italian prisoners began to arrive in August of that year.

You start in the very pink kitchen.

The Officers Club was constructed in the Spring of 1943 and is one of the few remaining buildings - it houses the museum

The interior walls of the club are painted with sixteen large, colorful murals—most of them 6 feet tall-- by three of the Italian prisoners

 It housed a lot of POWs.  After Italy surrendered the Italians were freed and replaced by Germans

 Besides the Murals there was artwork that they left behind

The murals have been identified as copies of western paintings by William Henry Jackson and Charles Russell.

 After the war, Spiegelberger Lumber and Building Company of Laramie dismantled 137 buildings and the rest were sold as surplus inventory.  The Douglas Community Country Club acquired the Officers Club and saved it from destruction.

It was a really fascinating piece of history - glad we stopped