The Wyoming Places website now hosts three in-depth digital exhibits on the topics of Heart Mountain WWII Internment Camp, Wyoming’s Statehood Celebration, and WWII Prisoner of War (POW) Camps in Wyoming. The latter is new to the collection, while the other exhibits have been revamped for visitors.
View overlooking the Douglas POW Camp. Two sections of barracks separated by razor wire fencing. Photo source: Wyoming State Archives
Each exhibit contains visual imagery such as historic photographs, drawings and newspaper clippings, as well as embedded videos from trusted resources all in one convenient location. The Statehood Celebration exhibit even has recreated audio files for the event’s speeches in addition to historic transcripts from the event.
“The exhibits consist of pieces of Wyoming history not everyone knows about,” said Chris Van Burgh, Wyoming State Library Database Instruction Librarian. “Even when people have heard about these historic events, they don’t always understand the depth of their impact. The digital exhibits make this information easy to discover for all ages.”
Anyone can visit these resources at places.wyo.gov. The site contains the aforementioned digital exhibits as well as a calendar of events throughout the state’s history, historic maps of Wyoming and the Places Digital Collection. The Digital Collection features more than 3,000 locations across Wyoming, including popular monuments, current cities, and the boom and bust towns of days past and the origins of their names.