Photos of Museum Exhibits

The Museum boasts an extensive photograph collection thanks to many local donors.

                                  Many historic saddles from the area's pioneers are on display.

 

 

 

 

 

The museum boasts two extensive Rock and Fossil collections.  The Sullivan Rock & Fossil Collection was gathered by a Hayden couple back in the mid-1900's. The Parfrey Collection was gathered over a number of years by Earl Parfrey Sr. who owned a  grocery store and wrote "The Rockhound" column for the local paper.  The Parfrey collection  includes a wide array of agates as well as dinosaur fossils.

 

 

 

 

 

The Semotans were breeders of some of the finest Foundation Sires of the American Quarter Horse Registry.

 

 

 

 

 

The Routt County Republican printing press was brought to Hayden in 1908 and actively used until the paper was transferred to printing in Steamboat Springs under the name of The Hayden Valley Press in the 1970's.

 

 

 

 

 

The Museum's kitchen display brings one back to the early 20th century.

 

 

 

 

 

Kit Carson traveled through the area numerous times throughout the late 1840s through 1860. In the spring of 1850 he was traveling near Hayden, with several other men on their way up to Ft. Laramie and then on to California for gold. (Kit was illiterate, but was traveling with men who could not only write, but kept journals of their travels.) A friend, possibly Tim Goodale, carved Kit's name (misspelled with a 'd') on the log, with the date and the intentions of heading out to California. Several weeks later, Kit received word that his wife had given birth, early, to their first child, and he headed back home instead of going on West. This log dates to 1820s making it large enough to have been carved on in April of 1850.