As the only store in the town, it needed to stock everything miners and residents might need.
When I visited the Mormon Handcart Museum a few years ago, I discovered one answer: an ingenious invention that several members of Brigham Young's company developed to make the process easier.
He did, which is why the Carbon County museum in Rawlins has a room dedicated to him.
Isn't this phonograph beautiful?
Although it's a relatively small museum, the Tate is filled with exhibits of everything from over 3,000 fossils and minerals to the skeleton of Dee the wooly mammoth as well as this recreation of a dinosaur.
If you're in the Casper area and have even the slightest interest in dinosaurs, be sure to visit the Tate.
As you probably guessed, this picture came from the Historic Trails Museum in Casper, which is one of my favorite Wyoming museums.
It's a small but intriguing museum with exhibits ranging from a replica coal mine and a lamb with one head but two bodies to this button attaching machine.
You'll note that it's only a pair of short boots that has buttons. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to put on those women's shoes if they'd had buttons rather than laces.