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1. What is the Rockpile?

The Rockpile is a natural sandstone formation. It was used as a landmark for cattle drives to recognize proximity to Burlington Lake, where they could water and graze their cattle while waiting for shipment on the railroad. Four employees of the Burlington and Missouri Railroad (C. T. Weir, Frank Murrey, and Robert & George Durley) were the first to file homestead rights in Rockpile Draw (to the northeast of the rockpile near the present train depot) in March 1889. These were later purchased by the Lincoln Land and Livestock Company which planned the town and sold lots in 1891.

2. How do I sign up a class or group to tour the museum?

All group reservations are handled by our Education Coordinator Penny Schroder. Please contact her at 307-682-5723 or by email at rockpile@vcn.com.

3. How do I get copies of historic photos?

Copies of historic photos in our collections are available. A computer is currently set up in our Research Area to allow visitors to access the museum's catalog of approximately 8000 historic images of Gillette and Campbell County, Wyoming.

All requests for photographic or digital reproductions are governed by the following conditions:

1. Permission is granted for ONE TIME NON-EXCLUSIVE USE ONLY. Photographic material may not be reused without written permission of the Campbell County Rockpile Museum (CCRM).

2. Items may be used for personal use only. Items reproduced for commercial purposes and/or publication must fill out a Permission to Publish Contract and may be subject to commercial use fees. A credit line is required and must be included with use of CCRM’s photos. It must state “Campbell County Rockpile Museum.”

3. CCRM reserves the right to limit the number of reproductions and may institute special fees for large orders or for items requiring special handling.

4. Copies, scans, or prints of the photographs used from these collections may not be deposited or placed on file in any repository without the express written permission of CCRM.

5. The paper copies, prints, or scans of photographs provided under the terms of this contract may not be used to produce additional paper copies or photographic prints.

6. Manipulation that alters the photograph in any way is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, cropping, colonization, overprinting, or altered digitization of the photograph.

7. If the terms of this contract are violated by the user, future requests of use of photographic images from the collections of CCRM may be refused. CCRM may also seek prosecution of the violator.

4. How did Campbell County get its name?

Campbell County is named after both John A. Campbell, the first governor of the territory of Wyoming, and Robert Campbell who was with an early expedition to this part of Wyoming from 1825 to 1835 and one of the founders of Fort Laramie.

5. What is the doughnut shaped rock?

The doughnut shaped rock near the museum's caboose was created from mud and silt hardening around a tree trunk over time. When the tree decomposed, the circular rock was left behind.

6. Why the camel as the high school mascot?

We did some research on this a few years ago and our best conclusion is that it is an alliteration of "Campbell County." Newspaper records from the early 1920's often refer to CCHS teams as the "Campbells" and once as the "Gillette Razors" and it appears that no mascot had been chosen. The Gillette News from October 20, 1921 is the first issue with CAMELS in it. The article is about football and is titled "Gillette Razors Couldn't Trim Newcastle." The first line is "The Gillette camels traveled over the sands of the east last Friday and met the Knights of Newcastle in combat." Despite this mention of camels and another a week later, the teams continued to often be called the "Campbells." We talked to R. R. Oedekoven about it several years ago and she said that her father Mark Richmond, CCHS Superintendent, chose Camel as the mascot in 1921. This adoption of a mascot probably coincided with the creation of the first high school football team in 1921.

7. What are the cone shaped hills in Campbell County?

The cone shaped hills consist of clinker, a tough, weather resistant rock that forms when coal deposits catch fire. The heat from the combusting coal melts the overlying sediments and it bakes and fuses them. Given the prolific nature of coal in the Powder River Basin much of this coal has caught fire as erosive forces exhumed and exposed the coal outcrops. Sometimes the fires are started by lightning and sometimes the fire starts from the spontaneous combustion of coal in the outcrop. The spontaneous combustion occurs when the exposed coal is first dehydrated (loses most of its moisture), then when the coal is rehydrated the interaction between the water and the carbon in the coal react and create heat, this process is called pyrophoricity. Cap rocks sometimes form over the burning fires.

Because of the nature of clinker, the surrounding softer sediments erode more quickly and the clinker remains. The cones are what are left from the surface eroding into the gullies. The shape of the hills is related to how the coal burns in the subsurface, most natural coal fires can burn a few hundred feet back behind the outcrop and provided the correct conditions one area will burn hotter than adjacent areas.