National Historic Trails Interpretive Center announces temporary exhibit to explore a part of Wyo.’s black history
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CASPER, Wyo. - The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center (NHTIC) is celebrating Black History Month with an exhibit entitled "Empire: Traces of Vanished Dreams." This exhibit opens on Feb. 2, and will close on Feb. 28.
This temporary exhibit will focus on the once thriving black community of Empire (1908-1920’s) located northeast of Torrington along the border of Wyoming and Nebraska. The Empire exhibit is featured through the Wyoming State Museum traveling exhibit program. The Wyoming State Museum makes a variety of traveling exhibits available to museums, libraries, schools and other cultural institutions throughout the state. The Empire exhibit is a relatively new addition to the traveling exhibit collection. Exhibits such as these offer an excellent opportunity to connect kids to public lands as well as America’s cultural and natural history.
Landscape photographs, newspaper articles, and additional materials compiled by trails center staff will also be showcased. These additional works will give viewers a clearer sense of the geographic, economic, and social struggles that Empire residents tried to overcome.
Founded in 1908 by African-American families who came from Nebraska, Empire was established as a racially self-sufficient, politically autonomous community in the Equality State. Lasting less than two decades, Empire disappeared from the landscape as drought, negative farm economics of the early 1920’s, and the racial animosity of their neighbors eventually forced Empire’s citizens to abandon the town. Today, very few, if anything remains of this once flourishing African-American community.
This temporary exhibit will highlight the motivation, dedication, and struggles faced by those early African-American homesteaders who came to the Equality State to start a new chapter in their lives, but found a very different form of what equality means.
On Saturday, Feb. 10, starting at 1 p.m., Todd Guenther, Professor of Anthropology and History at Central Wyoming College, will give a special presentation on Empire in the theater of the NHTIC. Professor Guenther is the author of “The Empire Builders: An African American Odyssey in Nebraska and Wyoming.”
The NHTIC is free and currently open Tuesday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, please contact the NHTIC at (307) 261-7780.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.