McCracken Research Library

Find out what goes on in the Center of the West’s McCracken Research Library and get an insider’s look at the incredible photographs, archives, and manuscripts housed and processed by the library’s staff—who are still making some amazing finds within the collections.

Adolph and Elizabeth (Plinky) Topperwein were a couple and sharpshooting duo. MS 20 Winchester Repeating Arms Company Collection. P.20.2986
July 18, 2024

The Fabulous Topperweins: a couple famed for their sharpshooting skills

The Fabulous Topperweins: a couple famed for their sharpshooting skills A Museum Minute By Olivia WeitzWyoming Public MediaJuly 18, 2024 A 1-minute…

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A performer who may be Oglala Lakota Chief Iron Tail plays ping pong with a fellow castmate as Joe Black Fox and a group Native performers, cowboys, vaqueros, and Cossacks watch the match. MS 6 William F. Cody Collection, McCracken Research Library. P.69.1031
July 10, 2024

A Spirited Wild West Volley – Points West Online

Originally published in Points West magazine History EditionWinter 2022 A Spirited Wild West Volley By Mack Frost The performers and crew who…

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Black & white graphic featuring WHD Koerner's 1931 painting of two mounted explorers with flintlock rifles across their laps leading another man and a pack string.
July 5, 2024

Enduring West: Exploration and its Impact

The American West has always been a destination to explore – by scholars, naturalists, scientists, and others. Discoveries made within the last…

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May 17, 2024

Advertising the Frontier Myth: Poster Art of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

In 1835, P.T. Barnum bought a human being. Barnum saw an ad in the Pennsylvania Inquirer. Joice Heth, an elderly African-American, was…

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April 5, 2024

The Harry Yount Enigma: Yellowstone’s First Park Ranger

Buried among the sublime passes of the Sierra Nevada are old men, who, when children, strayed away from our crowded settlements, and,…

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November 16, 2023

“There wasn’t any make-believe or made-up stuff:” the Western Work of James Bama

Don Schmalz was riding up Trout Creek. The year was 1973. The wind was coming straight out of the north and it…

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