Wyoming Pioneer Museum
A folklore museum in Douglas, Wyoming, Wyoming Pioneer Museum is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Museum preserving a horned-rabbit taxidermy display. It sits in the archive under folklore creatures. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Wyoming Pioneer Museum haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
The Wyoming Pioneer Museum sits on the State Fairgrounds in Douglas, a Converse County history collection that holds one artifact with national reach: a jackalope. Douglas taxidermist Doug Herrick and his brother Ralph assembled the original in 1934 — a jackrabbit head wearing deer antlers, produced by two teenagers mid-way through a mail-order taxidermy course — and sold it for ten dollars to Roy Ball, who mounted it in his LaBonte Hotel downtown.
That first jackalope hung in the LaBonte for more than four decades, until September 1977, when it was stolen and never recovered. The city's own telling admits the culprit remains at large — which is how the trophy on display at the Pioneer Museum is a successor rather than the original.
A taxidermied fact
Douglas has since made the invention official — 'Jackalope City' by municipal proclamation — and the museum's specimen anchors the legend's one verifiable strand: the creature is documented to be manufactured. The museum also preserves the LaBonte's ornate 1914 English-built back bar, the real hotel furnishing beneath the fabricated one.
The research notes set the file's terms precisely: the museum is distinct from the downtown Jackalope Square landmarks, and the trophy is taxidermy, not biological evidence. The dossier keeps it the way the town does — a fake animal with a real history, including one unsolved theft.
Documented history
A replacement jackalope trophy is displayed here after the original vanished from a local hotel. Wyoming Pioneer Museum's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. Media accounts document it — reported history rather than legend. The record appears in 'What is a Jackalope? Creature Amazes Visitors of…'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.
Media reportedWyoming Office of Tourism
Sources on file
- 01What is a Jackalope? Creature Amazes Visitors of Douglas, WyomingWyoming Office of Tourism · tourism · A3
Field notes & open questions
Distinct museum from Jackalope Square; shared folklore does not imply same physical location. The object is taxidermy, not biological evidence.