The Museum of the American West

The Pioneer Museum

The Fremont County Pioneer Museum is a county-owned facility and is in the process of reopening after many years of not being available to the public. The Museum of the American West is proud to have been a part in encouraging the County to rebuild this museum and to have it be a part of the museum complex.

The Pioneer Museum exhibits will explore the experiences and significance of early explorers and settles of this area.

It All Began With The Pioneer Association

This museum is one of the oldest in the West. Settlers in this area realized that their deeds and the regional geography were extraordinary and helped shaped the development of the entire nation. As early as 1869 the South Pass News began to publish historical articles to record the history of the area. In 1881, miner, Civil War veteran and South Pass politician, Captain Herman G. Nickerson, presented a paper on local history at the first Colorado – Wyoming Academy of Science conference in the territorial capital, Cheyenne. This was nine years before Wyoming even attained statehood.
Nickerson helped organize Fremont County in 1884 and suggested the name in honor of his pen pal, hero, and presidential candidate, General John C. Fremont. He next catalyzed the organization of the Fremont County Pioneer Association in 1886, when the vast county extended from the modern cross-roads community of Farson clear to the Montana border. The intent of the group was to preserve the history, both white and Indian, of central and western Wyoming, and its place in the national pageant.
The Pioneer Association acquired land and initiated construction of a log museum and meeting room in a residential part of Lander in 1909. This was the first building in Wyoming erected expressly as a museum. It is predated solely by the Wyoming State Museum, which at the time consisted only of some exhibit cases in the capital building.

The Pioneer Cabin was added onto over the decades as the artifact collections grew in size and renown; the Smithsonian even attempted to acquire several of the more significant artifacts.

The Pioneer Museum became county property in 1964 and continued to expand until 1998 when engineers declared the old museum building a hazard and it was closed.
At the request of the County Commissioners, local and regional private volunteers immediately joined the Pioneer Association, the County, the City of Lander, Lander Ambassadors, Fremont County School District #1, representatives from the Wind River Indian Reservation, the State of Wyoming and others to resurrect this historic institution. It was decided to create a new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, the Museum of the American West, to seek funds to acquire a larger and more suitable site and erect a new museum building to house the large and significant artifact collections illustrating the history of the development of this area and the American West.