Grand Encampment Interpretive Center, Encampment, WY

807 Barnett, P O Box 43, Grand Encampment, WY 82325 · Phone (307) 327-5308

About Grand Encampment Museum (GEM)
The museum started as a volunteer effort with support from the earlier families: Oldman and Parkison certainly, but also from others including such names as Herring, Platt, Vyvey- Verplancke, Kraft, Peryam, Wolfard, Kuntzman, and on and on. Even today the museum operates primarily with volunteer labor as the hub during the copper boom and since. And like the spokes of a wheel the story spreads from mining to timbering and agriculture. (Moulton, Candy. The Grand Encampment. Glendo, Wyoming: High Plains Press, 1997.) The Doc Culleton Memorial Building (see image below) is the main building here at the Grand Encampment Museum. It was erected in 1966.
Our Mission
	Grand Encampment Museum preserves and interprets the history of the Upper North Platte Valley. It provides the public with access to historical sources and experiences, as well as a place for research and to educate all generations.
Research Area
	The Grand Encampment Museum is proud to feature the Bert and Vera Oldman research area. This area features old newspapers, family papers, funeral records, maps, and many photographs. This area is open during regular museum hours. The Grand Encampment Museum also houses the Lora Webb Nichols collection of 24,000 photographs. Lora Webb Nichols (1883-1962) documented her world through her diary and her photographs. For her sixteenth birthday, a beau gave her a camera, and at Christmas that year "Pop" presented her with a developing outfit. The Kodak became Lora's instrument of liberation. It guaranteed her access to the claims and mines, the tram stations, smelter, tie camps and river drives. Her many portraits of women, children, and babies were jointed by those of teamsters, miners, ranchers and homesteaders, valley pioneers and saloon keepers. Lora's legacy began with her first incredible photograph of "Mama in the door," continued through the accumulation of her years as a professional photographer, and was increased by the work of others which she begged and borrowed.