We visited Gillette, WY due to its proximity to Devils Tower National Monument, but there’s more to the city than that. One of the fun things to do in Gillette is to visit the Frontier Auto Museum.
The Frontier Auto Museum is more than just a museum with a collection of classic cars though. It’s more like a living history museum (minus the people in period dress) which happens to include a bunch of classic cars, most of which were once local to Wyoming.
After buying our tickets, we headed into the museum area. To do that, you pass through a fun and historic turnstile which was once used in the early 1900s for entrance into the Iowa State Fair.
The start of the museum had several recreated stores…
…an old telephone booth…
…and a couple of classic cars.
The most interesting part of the museum for me came when we saw the canvas bag in the photo below hanging from the front of a 1918 Chevrolet. I’d figured it had some kind of cooling function for the car’s engine, but in fact it had a cooling function for the passengers.
Drivers would soak the canvas bags, then fill them with water and hang them on the front of their car before setting off on a longer road trip. Water would seep to the surface and evaporate which in turn cooled the water inside. The stored water would therefore stay about 12° cooler than the air temperature. While that’s not perfect in hot temperatures, this was used in the days before coolers and air conditioning, so water that was 12° cooler than ambient temperature was far better than nothing.
The route through the museum then took us through a recreated general store. The Frontier Auto Museum has done a great job with making everything a feast for the eyes without everything seeming far too busy.
After the general store area, you start getting to the auto part of the auto museum.
You might have noticed in an earlier photo that we had our dog Truffles with us. That’s because the Frontier Auto Museum is a pet-friendly attraction – dogs just have to remain on a leash.
The nature of the museum means there are all kinds of great photo ops for your pup.
Anyway, back to the cars and car-related paraphernalia.
In addition to classic cars, there were quite a few historic gas pumps and similar exhibits. That included lots of gas pump globes which were lit up so that motorists back in the day could see them from a distance before they were phased out in the 1960s.
The collection of classic cars continued against a backdrop of neon signs, license plates, gas signs and more.
One of the more interesting vehicles for me was this Prohibition-era Harley Davidson that looked a little different to modern-day Harleys.
In addition to classic vehicles…
…there was the opportunity to take a photo in a super-classic vehicle replica.
I’m old enough to remember paper road maps, but I thankfully didn’t start driving until there were satellite navigation units and then Google Maps to provide visual and audible directions. I can’t imagine what life would’ve been like on our 7 year road trip around all 50 states if we’d had to rely on these paper maps as our sole navigation tool!
I grew up in the UK where we had different car brands to the US and I was never a car guy growing up. As a result, the extent of my awareness of the Hudson Hornet is limited to it being a character in the movie Cars!
There were several more classic cars from the 40s, 50s and 60s.
The auto part of the Frontier Auto Museum is bookended by living history recreations of stores, with some of the stores at the end including a cleaner’s, gun shop, watch store and more.
For kids – or the kid in you – there’s a working Sinclair Dino ride.
There’s even a drive-in movie recreation complete with movie, car and side speaker.
There are a few exhibits outside which includes an older Arby’s sign. Having said that, I’ve seen at least a couple of these as we’ve driven around on our road trip, so there are still some out there in the wild!
If your visit to the museum works up a thirst or hunger, there’s the Commodore Café on site where you can grab something to eat and drink.
Final Thoughts
Shae and I had a great time visiting the Frontier Auto Museum in Gillette, WY. It’s a very well put together museum with a good mix of classic cars, recreated stores and other historical artifacts. If you’ll be staying in Gillette to visit Devils Tower, we’d recommend stopping by this museum too.
Wow! That looks like a great place to visit. So much to see. Thanks for the look!
Yep, a lot of fun!