Lecture: Jaggar Revisited – Rephotographing the 1893 Absaroka Expedition
February 6 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm MST
Jaggar Revisited: Rephotographing the 1893 Absaroka Expedition
By Brian Beauvais
February 6, 2025
Noon–1 p.m.
Coe Auditorium
Join us for the February Lunchtime Expedition, the kick-off for our 2025 season. Park County Archives Curator Brian Beauvais presents , Jaggar Revisited: Rephotographing the 1893 Absaroka Expedition.
While talks in our Lunchtime Expedition series will not be live streamed going forward, they will be recorded and posted to the Draper Museum’s YouTube channel within a couple days after they take place.
About the program
In the summer of 1893, Thomas Jaggar took part in an expedition through the Absaroka Mountains to chronicle the recently created Yellowstone Timberland Reserve. The leader of the trip was Arnold Hague, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who had been surveying the Yellowstone region since 1883.
Jaggar was twenty-two years old and fresh out of college. He kept a journal of the expedition and field notes of his geological observations. He also took photographs of the geological features throughout the duration of the trip. Looking at Jaggar’s photos today provides a fascinating glimpse at the character of the landscape over one hundred and thirty years ago.
In the spring of 2020 Brian Beauvais began locating and rephotographing the images Jaggar captured in 1893 and on a later trip in 1897 so as to document the landscape over time. This undertaking involved hiking and horseback riding to numerous places along Jaggar’s route—some quite accessible, others very remote.
This program will recount Jaggar’s 1893 expedition through the Absaroka Mountains using his journal entries and the photographs he captured as guides. Beauvais will describe the historic landscape Jaggar encountered and discuss how comparing old photographs with contemporary versions can illuminate changes occurring in our local landscapes.
About the speaker
Brian Beauvais is the Curator of the Park County Archives in Cody. He is a member of the Park County Historic Preservation Commission, the Park County Historical Society, the Wyoming Historical Foundation, and the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund. He holds a master’s of arts degree in history and is pursuing a master’s of library science.
He has written about and given public presentations on various topics relating to the history of northwest Wyoming, ranging from hunting and wildlife conservation, mining and prospecting, recreational pack trips, historic preservation, vernacular architecture, ranching, homesteading, and local art.
Upcoming Lunchtime Expeditions
The series generally continues on the first Thursday of each month from February through December.
Have you missed a Lunchtime Expedition?
The talks in this series are gathered in YouTube playlists by year:
• 2024 Lunchtime Expeditions
• 2023 Lunchtime Expeditions
