CODY, Wyo. — Samantha Harper and Karen Roles of the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West will provide an overview of the library’s Yellowstone archives on April 29.
The presentation will be part of the meeting of the Pahaska Corral of Westerners at the Governors Room in the Irma Hotel in Cody. For more information on the presentation, email Lynn Houze at [email protected].
The McCracken’s Yellowstone National Park Collection came from various sources, but what the items all have in common is that they are primary sources that depict the Yellowstone story, be they stagecoach passes, photographs, promotional brochures, government reports, or postcards.
Harper and Roles will be highlighting the Greater Yellowstone Sights and Sounds Collection: more than 18,000 video clips including footage of moose, grizzlies, and other charismatic megafauna. The collection also includes video of rangers, biologists, and community members discussing their feelings about, among other things, wolf reintroduction, grizzly bears, and incidents of human-wildlife conflict.
Harper came by her interest in the American West naturally. She originates from Hays. Not only was it once the wildest of cow towns, it was at one point the home to Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and others.
“In in a way I’m retracing Cody’s steps through life,” she said. “The Hays City Crest consists of busts of Cody, Hickok, and Custer, so I just grew up with this history all around me.”
Roles, a former Powell High School history teacher, was born and raised in the Bighorn Basin. A skilled genealogist she assists patrons at the McCracken with research inquiries.
“We have buried treasures here, and when you do a little bit of digging, you find we have an abundance of materials that are deeply related to Yellowstone National Park,” Harper said.
The Pahaska Corral of Westerners is the local chapter of Westerner International, an organization headquartered at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (formerly the Cowboy Hall of Fame) in Oklahoma City. The Westerners International, founded in 1944, is dedicated to stimulating interest and research in the history of the American West.
— Republished with permission