Wednesday in Wyoming - May 5, 2021

 

Continuing our discussion of Wyoming's museums ... 

If you're ever in western Wyoming, I highly recommend a stop at Fort Bridger. The collection of historic buildings which includes some bright orange and black garage camp cabins, is well worth the stop. And the museum itself is filled with fascinating displays.

In case you were wondering what garage camp cabins are, they're motel units with attached garages, making the early years of travel by automobile more pleasant ... at least for the cars. While the cabins had electricity, there was no running water.

Wednesday in Wyoming - January 23, 2019

Remember the garage camp cabins I featured last week? Here's what the interior of one looked like. As you can see, it has some of the amenities we'd expect - a stove for heat, an electric bulb for light, a table and chairs for eating, and beds for sleeping.

What's missing? Indoor plumbing. There was a water pump not too far away, and what some called "the necessary" was located behind the cabins. The necessary, I'm sure you can guess, was an outhouse. This was, after all, camping.

Wednesday in Wyoming - January 16, 2019

I suspect that when most people think about Fort Bridger, they envision the nineteenth century trading post and then the army fort. How many know that it was a stop along the Lincoln Highway in the twentieth century?

When automobile travel became popular and the Lincoln Highway (now US route 30) was completed, tourists wanted a place to stay. Just as importantly, they wanted a place for their cars. Enter the "garage camp cabins."

The dark spots you see next to each of the orange cabins are garages. I imagine that, given the number of hail storms and violent thunderstorms we experience during the summer, those garages were very popular.

What did the interior of the cabins look like? Come back next week, and we'll explore them.