The line to buy an autographed book from Phyllis Preator. (Click on images to enlarge).
On Tuesday we find ourselves back at the Sunset House Restaurant just a few blocks from our rental house in Cody for a luncheon of the Park County Historical Society at the invitation of Ladonna Zall, a board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and curator and docent at the interpretive center. We saw some familiar faces from last nights’ Pahaska Corral Westerners meeting. We were introduced as today’s guests and Sharon gave a plug for our homesteaders/barracks project. Phyllis Preator, author of “Behind the Shadows- McCulloch Peaks, Early History and Stories”, about the nearby mountain range, was the featured speaker. She was wore a striking fringed leather vest and recounted her early days in the area and riding horses in the McCulloch Peaks.
Three generations of Brights in the original homestead house.
Later in the day we headed to the Bright homestead as rain began to fall in Cody. Harley and Alison Bright had homesteaded in 1949 but live in Powell now. Their son Gary and his family now live in his parents original home made from a barrack on the homestead land. Gary brought his parents to the house today and we got to meet most of the family. They knew a lot about the history of the Bright homestead and about the barracks that became the house. Gary’s wife Sharon showed us where the Japanese American incarcerees cut vents next to the window frames in the walls of the barracks for ventilation since the windows would not open. The vent was long covered on the outside, but the Brights had kept the screen in place and the small wood door that could close off the vent.
Inside door of a vent (open) on the right and closed on the left.
