Candlelight Christmas Returns at Fort Caspar

On Saturday, hundreds of people and families showed up at Fort Caspar after it had been canceled for the past two years due to the pandemic.

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Rick Young, the Museum Director of Fort Caspar, said they've been doing this event for the past 20 years and usually get around 1,000 people to show up.

Young said they had around 30 actors doing reenactments of what life was like in the 1800s for people celebrating Christmas.

"What you've got is a lot of reenactors down at the fort and it's an opportunity to see the fort at night, and in the winter, with the candle lanterns going, maybe get a glimpse of what it was like in 1865 during a frontier Christmas...we also have the Wyoming fiddler's association playing music, we've got an opportunity for kids crafts here in the museum," Young said. "They're making and decorating ornaments. Then you have all the actors around the various rooms in fort buildings."

Young has been with the museum for 37 years and started doing the event because he saw something similar done at a museum he used to work at and thought it would work here.

"I worked at another museum and they did a winter candlelight activity. It was something I wanted to bring here whenever I came to Casper," Young said. "It was well received at the other museum I worked at, and I thought it would be a program here that people in Casper would enjoy as well. It's been a fun event for us. There's no admission fee, so it's one of the opportunities for the museum to give back to people with a free public event...Well, we're certainly hoping that now that we're bringing it back to a live event people will be excited about it and want to come out and see it."