|
The Saratoga Museum, opened in 1980, is housed in the town’s original c1915 Union Pacific Railroad Depot. The museum provides an opportunity for its visitors to explore the history of the Platte Valley. The museum exhibits tell the story of early man in the Americas and Saratoga’s pioneer ranchers, merchants, tradesmen, loggers, clergy, dentists, physicians, educators and the women working beside them in the settlement of the Valley. Saratoga, Wyoming, originally called Warm Springs, was once neutral ground for the Indian tribes inhabiting the Platte Valley before the arrival of white settlers. In 1884, Fenimore C. Chatterton changed the name to Saratoga, a name derived from an Iroquois Indian word Sarachtogue, which translates to “place of miraculous water in the rock” Chatterton borrowed the name from Saratoga Springs, NY, a town he had visited in his youth. The town was later incorporated in 1890.
The museum’s newest section is a natural history room featuring a world-class specimen collection and minerals of local historical importance as well as interpretive displays on the geologic history of the Valley.
Other exhibits at the museum include a caboose donated in 1982 by the Union Pacific Railroad, a sheep wagon, tie hack tools, a geology exhibit, and the Katharine Bakeless Nason Archaeology room.
Excerpted from museum brochure.
|
|
|
