SWEETWATER COUNTY — The Sweetwater County Historical Museum shared its end-of-the year review during the Rock Springs Chamber of Business Luncheon, boasting more than 4,000 visitors a year.

Laura Dale, public engagement coordinator and volunteer coordinator, started at her poststion at the museum last year in July. Since then, Dale has worked to strengthen the museum’s local presence and connect people to the history of Sweetwater County.

The museum features a collection of tens of thousands of artifacts, hundreds of thousands of photos and a new website. Dale said the old website was outdated and didn’t have clear paths for users to find important informations. She said the new website, which launched in April, makes digital outreach easier and offers a platform to host event registrations, news articles and more.

Dale’s job as the engagement coordinator is split between educational programming for students and public outreach. Those programs include school tours, classroom presentations and the museum’s annual third grade history fair.

“We had good educational programming for students when I started, so my focus has been to build up our public outreach programming to engage with more people outside of just schools and students,” Dale said. “I have continued annual event traditions like our Day of the Dead event, but also worked with community partners to create new programs that highlight the history and culture of our communities.”

The museum also offers classroom kits, totes filled with real and replica historic artifacts and fossils that teachers can use with students. The museum currently has two kits, Dinos and Fossils and Mountain Man and the Fur Trade. Teachers book the kits for one week and Dale said she encourages them to pair a kit with a classroom presentation.

The Third Grade History Fair, one of the museum’s signature annual events, drew more than 600 students, teachers and parents this year. Students learned about butter making, panning for gold, branding a wooden cow and racing coal buckets. The museum also partners with experts on Native American culture and Mountain Man history for the event, which draws 15 to 20 volunteers a day during the week it runs and includes both Sweetwater County School Districts and homeschool families.

The museum’s annual Dia de los Muertos celebration, which has been held since at least 2017, has also grown under Dale. What began as an ofrenda, or altar, set up by a local family has expanded into a festival featuring cultural crafts, traditional foods and dancing. Last year’s event included an exhibit of cultural dance clothing of Mexico, loaned by the same family that started the tradition with past museum staff.

Dale said the museum plans to expand the celebration this year, running from September during Hispanic Heritage Month through November for Day of the Dead.