Meeteetse, WY, part 1

For our excursion today, we went to Meeteetse which is northwest of here on the way to Cody and Yellowstone National Park.

On the north side, just as you enter town, is a memorial to Amelia Earhart. It reads,

AMELIA EARHART

IN WYOMING

IN MEMORY OF THE WORLD FAMOUS AVIATRIX

FIRST WOMAN TO FLY ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

JUNE 17, 1928 AND MAY 20, 1932

WAS BUILDING A SUMMER HOME NEAR HERE

WHEN SHE LEFT TO FLY AROUND THE EARTH

AND WAS LOST IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC

JULY 2, 1937

ERECTED BY HER WYOMING FRIENDS

We then went to the Belden Museum to see if I could find anything belonging to Earhart. I asked one of the curators for help, and she pulled out of their archives the photographs below.

The Belden Museum (below) boasts the "WORLD'S LARGEST COLLECTION" of Charles Belden's photographs.

Meeteetse is famous for the Pitchfork Ranch where the Marlboro cigarette commercials were filmed. The Belden Museum also has many photographs which commemorates this achievement. The photo below is a part of that display.

Here are some other historic displays in the museum:

For more historic photographs of Meeteetse, click here.

Across the street from the museum is the old Meeteetse Mercantile building which now is vacant.

Below are some other businesses along State Street.

The Bank Museum (below) was originally built in 1900 to house the banking firm of Hogg, Cheeseman and McDonald. The Bank building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

This is the visitor information center:

This is the Episcopal church:

In a small park by the river is this statue of the blackfooted ferret (an endangered animal in North America which was previously thought to be extinct before being discovered at the Pitchfork Ranch in 1981):

The memorial stone below reads,

MEETEETSE

Wyoming

Otto Franc started the Pitchfork Ranch up river in 1879, which brought interest and people to this area. A log bridge was erected across the Grey Bull River in 1886. The bridge was built here, 3/4 of a mile below the traditional wagon crossing to save $470, at a cost of $1930.

William McNally built his blacksmith shop and A. C. Thomas moved his store here the same year, 1886. Margaret Wilson moved her post office here from up on Meeteetse Creek. The town was plotted in 1896 and the creation of Meeteetse became official.

Below is the Greybull River mentioned above.

This used to be the schoolhouse; now it is the parsonage for the Community Church.

The wife of the pastor of the Community Church showed us this photograph of what it looked like originally. She said her husband "used to ride bulls before he got saved."

This beautiful statue is in front of an RV park with cottages on the north side of town.

We ate our picnic lunch at the Lions Park:

Here are some homes which caught my attention:

Below, the horizontal line through the M (for Meeteetse) designates the longhorn, the mascot for the Meeteetse High School. Now, if you click on the photograph above to enlarge it and look just to the left of the vehicle in the foreground, you can see two of these symbols, indicating that this home has two high schoolers.

See also Meeteetse, WY, part 3, part 2.

link: index to photographs