Grand Encampment Museum — Interpretive Master Plan

Encampment, Wyoming’s boom days ended over a century ago. And like much of the West, there’s a gritty tenacity still in its air. The Grand Encampment Museum is a surprisingly deep institution in this community of fewer than 500 people- a collection of more than twenty buildings, transportation of all types – and the people who used them both in its glory days. But like many of the boom-bust communities of the last centuries exploiting minerals, timber and their supporting industries, it’s cattle ranching that has held Encampment’s community.

Studio Tectonic used the threads stemming from these objects and stories to create master plans for key buildings at the museum, and their connections and importance to the larger institution. We developed an interpretive lens for new exhibits – JOURNEYS. It captures elements of the collections and of the theme. It conjures the people of the past through one of their essential activities: making their way between significant destinations across the landscape, a landscape that visitors themselves traverse in their trip through the museum. Through this lens, visitors will see the collection’s historic buildings as destinations and departure points for people in the past.

The museum is currently embarking on the first phase of the master plan.