Wyoming
State Archives

The collection encompasses a time period from Wyoming’s territorial days to the present with a representation of photographic processes since the birth of photography in 1839.

Subjects represented in the collections include: actors, agriculture, animals, automobiles, aviation, bicycle clubs, blizzards, brands, bridges, cabins, camps, canyons, Civilian Conservation Corps, charcoal kilns, Cheyenne Frontier Days, cities and towns in Wyoming, cowboys, construction, dams, Devil’s Tower, ethnic groups, expeditions, fairs, ferries, fire departments, fires, floods, forts and camps,hangings, Heart Mountain, industry, Native Americans, Johnson County War, legislature, Medicine Wheel, monuments and markers, military, mining, national forests, nurses, oil industry, outlaws, parades, parks, Philippine Campaign, Pony Express, ranches, reservoirs, rivers, robberies, rodeos, roundups, saloons, schools, Spanish American War, stage and telegraph stations, state buildings, Teapot Dome, transportation, University of Wyoming, wagons, Yellowstone National Park.

Major collections include:

Meyers Collection
The Meyers Collection contains approximately 12,000 images. This collection consists of Joseph Schimitz’s photographs of people and Wyoming communities.

Kirkland Collection
The Kirkland Collection contains excellent examples of commercial photography of the Cheyenne, Wyoming vicinity. Kirkland did much documentation of the cowboy and ranch life of the 1880’s and 1890’s.

Carrigen Collection
The Thomas G. Carrigen Collections contains approximately 30,000 images documenting every facet of life in the central and northern parts of Wyoming from the late 1920’s until the late 1960’s.

Stimson Collection
The J. E. Stimson Collection is comprised of approximately 7,500 images, mostly on glass plate negatives, and date from the late 1800’s to 1942. A variety of subject material depicting life in America, including landscapes, industrial scenes, mining towns, railroads and railroad stations, cities and towns and interior and exteriors of buildings. His work is one of the most important collections of early western photography.

Brammar Collection
Francis Brammar was the chief photographer for the Cheyenne Newspapers from 1932 until 1982. His approximately 44,000 images in the Cheyenne area covered political figures, Cheyenne Frontier Days, and events and lifestyles of the frontier community.

Postcards
The collection contains over 3,000 colored and black and white postcards. Subjects include cities and towns, buildings, scenic areas, Yellowstone National Park and Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Whether you are doing research for scholarly purposes, tracing family genealogy, or simply wish to come and browse, our staff is here to serve your research needs.

Online Historical Photograph Collection