Wyoming Places Exhibits

The camp now known as the Heart Mountain WWII Japanese American Confinement Site was established in the summer of 1942, between Cody and Powell, Wyoming. The camp was part of a larger government movement in the months following the United States’ formal entrance into WWII to house Japanese-Americans the United States Government perceived as a threat to national security. During WWII, more than 10,000 people were incarcerated at the Heart Mountain Camp and remained at the camp until its closure on November 10, 1945. This exhibit features historic newspapers written in both English and Japanese languages, historic photographs, drawings, artwork, videos, and other resources that highlight Wyoming’s only Japanese Internment Camp.

The Statehood Celebration Exhibit takes users back to July 23, 1890, the day Wyoming celebrated achieving its statehood. On July 10, 1890, United States president Benjamin Harrison signed the bill which formally recognized Wyoming as the 44th State in the Union. The exhibit features historic newspapers, re-enactments of speeches given during the Statehood Celebration at the capitol, historic photographs of the members and dignitaries who attended the Statehood Celebration, and other historic documents.  

From 1942 to 1946, Wyoming established nineteen large and small camps throughout the state to house Italian and, later, German Prisoners of War during WWII. During the war, the United States housed over 436,000 Axis Prisoners of War in POW camps located throughout the country. This online exhibit features historic newspapers written by the POWs while interned in the Douglas and Cheyenne camps (written in German), historic photographs, a collection of camp artifacts, a map with all the POW camp locations in Wyoming, and other resources highlighting this little known fact about Wyoming’s history.