The Wyoming State Museum was established in 1895 and has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting a wide variety of artifacts ever since. These collections represent life in Wyoming from prehistoric times to the present. The Museum oversees thousands of artifacts including items crafted and used by Native Americans to manufactured goods purchased and used by today’s residents. Our mission is to collect the many types of things used by people who have called Wyoming their home. Here is a sampling of some of the wonderful artifacts maintained in the collections of the Wyoming State Museum.

The mission of the Wyoming State Museum is to serve as an educational, historical, and cultural institution, whose goal is to collect, preserve, and interpret artifacts that reflect the human and natural history of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West. Wyoming State Museum is a repository for material concerning Wyoming history, art, natural history and fossils, industry, Native Americans, pioneers and its cultural heritage.

Permanent exhibit themes include coal, human impact on wildlife, dinosaur fossils, Wyoming settlement and other Wyoming-related issues.

Native American Artifacts:
This collection primarily strives to represent Native American groups of the Northern Plains region. A few generous artifact donors in the past provided fine examples of craftsmanship from other Native American tribes, which are maintained for comparative purposes.

Clothing and Personal Items:
Many styles of clothing from the early days of Wyoming to the present can be found in the collections, including everyday and dress clothes for men, women, and children. The State Museum also maintains many civilian and military uniforms.

Household Items:
Everyday objects used in the home are part of the artifact collection as well. These include items such as furniture, coffee pots, quilts, and knick-knacks. These artifacts give a picture of what daily life has been like for the people of Wyoming.

Transportation Artifacts:
Wyoming has seen many changes in how people travel from place to place. The collection reflects these changes with artifacts that represent travel by foot, horseback, railroad, car, and airplane.

Tools:
Wyoming’s people have worked in many trades from laborer to skilled professional. Tools of these many trades, as well as tools for work in the home, are represented in the collections.

Recreation:
Fun and recreation are also represented in the collections. Beloved childhood toys, sports equipment, musical instruments, and other items representing leisure time are collected by the museum.

Artworks:
The museum collects all mediums of original art created by Wyoming artists, and works depicting Wyoming’s diverse people and places.

Natural History:
Wyoming’s natural history is an important part of its story. Examples of minerals, ancient fossils, and animal life can be found in the collections