Yellowstone Gateway Museum Archival/Photo Collection Preservation Project

FAIN: PG-52585-15

Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum of Park County (Livingston, MT 59047-2011)
Karen Leigh Reinhart (Project Director: May 2014 to September 2016)

Purchase of rehousing supplies and new storage furniture for a collection of paper archives, photographs, and artwork. The collection includes photographs and papers of residents of Park County, Montana, many of whom worked on the Northern Pacific Railway or visited and worked at the Yellowstone National Park. Materials date from the 1880s to 1940s. The collections have seen significant use among genealogists, legal scholars, academics, educators, and students; moreover, photographs from the collection have been used in news articles as well as film documentaries for PBS and the BBC.

The Yellowstone Gateway Museum of Park County (YGM) holds numerous significant manuscript, archival and photograph collections. Collections are held to preserve Park County and Montana’s heritage. YGM honors the spirit of Montana’s history by accessioning, processing, and making accessible archival materials that reflect the state’s diverse cultural background. Currently a large majority of these collections are located in a storage building behind the museum. The building does not have any environmental controls such as heating or cooling. Historic documents and photographs received by donors are currently stored in acidic boxes. As with many small museums, a large amount of backlog exists from the early years of development. Our goal is to move the material to the HVAC-controlled museum and store significant photographs and documents in archival folders, boxes, and cabinets to ensure the stability of the items for current and future researchers.