Museum exhibit highlights Green River history

Bringing the Sweetwater County Historic Museum's newest display to the Community Room at the County Courthouse has been an "all hands on deck" effort, literally. The exhibit not only brought together the history of father-son Green River natives Adrienne and A.K. Reynolds, multiple museum's collections, and members of the Reynolds family, but it also brought a vintage 17-foot boat into the basement of the Sweetwater County Courthouse.

The exhibit officially opened last Thursday and was celebrated with a reception and a visit from Tamara Twitchell, the daughter of A.K. and Ellen Reynolds.

A dual commemoration

"The exhibit's theme is a dual commemoration of the Reynolds's legacy as well as the 60th anniversary of the Flaming Gorge Dam going officially online as a power generator on September 27, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy personally signaled the startup," Dick Blust from the museum explained in a press release.

A.K. Reynolds and his wife Ellen owned and operated a river-running service on the Green River over half a century ago, before the dam was completed. After the dam was built, the river changed forever and their river-running service came to an end. The family had other positive ties to the dam though, as A.K.'s father Adrienne Reynolds, who was the long-time publisher of the Green River Star, gave a speech at the ribbon cutting of the Flaming Gorge Dam Visitor Center in 1980.

"The exhibit's centerpiece is one of the Reynolds's two handmade wooden cataract boats," the museum press release explained. "Also featured is a continuous showing of the film 'Face Your Danger - The Story of A.K. Reynolds & the Cataract Boat' and film footage of the dam's startup ceremony in 1963. In addition, the museum has prepared dozens of framed photographs for display on the walls of public areas throughout the courthouse, depicting the dam during its six years of construction."

For Museum Director Dave Mead, the decision of when to open the display to the public was an easy one.

"We didn't set this opening date. President Kennedy did," Mead said at the opening event. "Sixty years ago today is when he gave his speech, pushed the buzzer, and started the turbine drawing - September 27, 1963. So, the date was set." 

Bringing the display to Green River in order to open by this date, however, took some extra teamwork and coordination. In addition to pulling photos and information on the Reynolds family from the museum's collection, the team from the Sweetwater County Historical Museum had to coordinate with the Uintah County Heritage Museum to bring the cataract boat to Green River and - carefully - get it into the Court House.

The help of Tamara Twitchell was crucial in making this happen, but she was happy to be part of bringing her family's legacy back home.

Sharing a family's legacy

"The boat has finally got back to where it was built," Twitchell said, happy to see her father's boat return to Green River to be part of the display.

She explained that her grandparent's house was just "up the hill," and the wooden boats were built in their garage.

In many ways, the display has been in the works for years, since Twitchell and her siblings have been working to gather information on their parents and grandparents. It started with finding old film footage of their grandparents, then gathering photographs and other historical records on their family from sources like the University of Wyoming, the University of Utah, the Powell Museum in Green River, Utah, and more.

With the family also having two of A.K.'s handmade boats, which are some of the few cataract boats from the time left in existence and in some of the best condition, they didn't know how to display them.

"We got to thinking, why not let everybody see them?" Twitchell explained.

One of the boats is now permanently on display at the Uintah County Heritage Museum in Vernal, Utah. But the decision was made to use the other boat as a traveling exhibit that could be given to other museums on long-term loan, which is how it ended up coming back home to Green River. But Twitchell still wanted to stay closely connected.

"If it's traveling, I want to be a part of it when it goes somewhere," she said, explaining she wants to be able to share her personal connections to the history. "We still wanted to be a part of it, because it is our family."

Twitchell in particular has special connections with the cataract boat.

"This boat is practically home," she said.

She explained that she is the only one of her siblings or of any of the family members still alive who has personal memories of going down the river in the boat with her parents.

"It is a lifestyle that people don't have anymore," she noted, pointing out how adventuresome her parents were and how they were the entrepreneurs of their time with their river-running business. But she also added that river-running is starting to increase in popularity again and the interest in boating adventures is coming back.

History's impact

The cyclical nature of history, the way things come back after so long, is one of the major parts of why displays like the ones the museum puts together are important.

"I think that people need to know from whence we've come, we need to know about our history, because it's all around us, and our history affects our life today, the decisions that we've made," Dave Mead explained. "Ultimately, if we don't know our history, we're doomed to repeat it."

Mead hopes that visitors to the display will ponder whether the decisions made in the past were the right ones, and how their impact affects our decisions in the future.

"The takeaway I want people to think about is, did we make the right decision damming these rivers?" Mead said.

Dams like the Flaming Gorge Dam have had multiple impacts, from positive effects in generating electricity and helping the economy to negative impacts like changing the landscape, Mead pointed out.

"This beautiful wild river is gone," he said. "A.K. Reynolds had to quit running the river because there was no river to run."

Mead also pointed out that President Kennedy, who dedicated the dam, discussed how they'd been talking about the dam for 50 years and it was finally a reality, but asked if in another 50 years they would think it was the right decision. Now that the dam has been operating for 60 years, we are left to ponder that decision, and other similar decisions.

The museum display's opening wasn't especially well-attended, which Mead knew would be the case, because the Bureau of Land Management's public meeting to discuss the Rock Springs Field Office Resource Management Plan took place the same day and time. Rather than be discouraged by this, Mead found it ironic and meaningful. A meeting to discuss the future of public lands and natural resources taking place at the same time as a museum display looking at the impact of past decisions on public lands and natural resources felt significant. And Mead knew the display would still be available for the public to enjoy and learn from for quite some time.

The exhibit is free and open to the public during normal courthouse hours every Monday through Friday.