Inside Sundance’s Old Stoney Museum

A preserved courtroom is an unusually good place to begin a visit to a county museum. At the Crook County Museum in Sundance, the furniture is arranged as a courtroom rather than scattered among labels and cases, giving the room a sense of purpose. This is where the story of Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid, comes into focus.

The museum occupies the restored stone school building commonly known as Old Stoney. Its period character is not just a backdrop for the collection; it gives the visit an added layer. You are moving through local history inside one of the town’s own historic structures.

From the street, the building can seem fairly compact. Inside, it opens into a notably deep collection of rooms and displays, with enough material to reward a slow look rather than a quick pass through.

Longabaugh’s Sundance Kid nickname has long attached itself to this corner of Wyoming, and the museum’s courtroom is a direct route into that chapter. The room is associated with his trial and sentencing, an episode that places a figure of Western legend in a very specific local setting.

The preserved courtroom furnishings matter because they show the shape of proceedings: where the officials sat, how the room was ordered, and how formal the setting was. It is a more grounded encounter than a display that simply repeats a famous outlaw’s name.

That grounding suits the museum’s larger approach. The West here is not only a gallery of legends. It is also paperwork, institutions, household goods, work, weather, hunting, and the many practical routines that filled ordinary days.

The Crook County collection is broad and pleasantly eclectic, with more than 7,000 artifacts associated with the county and surrounding region. Many came from local pioneer families, so the displays carry the accumulated texture of things that were kept, used, handed down, and eventually placed in the museum’s care.

Americana shares space with objects that help explain early life in the United States and in northeastern Wyoming. Some pieces date back hundreds of years. Others are familiar in shape but startling in their rustic materials or straightforward construction, reminders that daily tasks once involved more labor and fewer conveniences.

The museum does not treat these items as a heap of curiosities. The displays are arranged to build a story of the area and its people, making it easier to connect an individual object with a wider way of life.

That storytelling is useful in a collection this varied. One moment may bring a reader toward ranch and settlement history; the next may turn to household life, regional landmarks, or the older practices that predated the town itself.

One of the more distinctive exhibits explains the buffalo-jump hunting practice used in the region. It gives the museum a reach beyond the walls of Old Stoney, pointing visitors back toward the land and the ways people understood and used it long before modern roads.

A video explores a buffalo jump located a few miles away, adding a nearby geographic reference to the subject. It is a useful pause in a museum full of objects: history is not only in cases and on shelves, but also out in the terrain around Sundance.

There is also a connection to Devils Tower in the museum’s regional story. For travelers making Sundance part of a drive toward the national monument, the museum can add context to the surrounding landscape before the route continues north and west.

Not every memorable item has to be a courtroom desk or a major historical marker. A dried-flower exhibit stands out among the displays, the sort of unexpected subject that can make a visitor slow down and look closer.

That variety is one of Old Stoney’s pleasures. The collection moves between sturdy, workaday artifacts and more delicate or personal remnants. It makes room for the small possessions and visual details that can get lost when regional history is told only through big events.

For visitors who enjoy reading labels and following threads from one case to another, an hour is an easy minimum. A more deliberate browse can stretch longer, especially when a particular object sends you back to compare it with something in the next room.

Families are not asked to keep younger visitors at arm’s length from the whole experience. A dress-up chest includes period clothing for children to try on, adding a bit of play to a building full of carefully preserved material.

There is also a saddle children can sit on. It is a simple hands-on object, but it gives a child a better physical sense of the equipment than a saddle viewed from behind a barrier ever could.

At the dig table, children can search for hidden items. These features break up the more artifact-heavy portions of the museum and give families a few natural stopping points as they make their way through the exhibits.

The museum’s staff and guides are a valuable resource for visitors who want more than the printed caption. They answer questions about the exhibits and may offer informal explanations or personal tours when available.

Local ranching stories can bring another dimension to the collection. Accounts of cattle drives, blizzards, and the day-to-day realities behind Western mythology help keep the region from turning into a collection of postcard images.

That kind of conversation can change the pace of a visit. A case that initially looks like a group of old tools or household objects may become more legible once someone explains how it fit into work, travel, or a difficult winter.

The visit continues downstairs in the basement gift shop, which carries art, museum merchandise, and other locally appealing items. It is a fitting final stop after a museum built around the objects and stories of the area.

The shop is not a substitute for the exhibits; it is simply another small room to browse before heading back into Sundance. After a slow circuit through the courtroom, regional displays, and hands-on corners, it gives the building one last detail to discover.