Whoopup Canyon History Program

PRESENTING WHOOPUP CANYON

  Area historian Lucas Keeler returns to the library with a program on the extensive rock panels in Whoopup Canyon in northeast Wyoming on Wednesday, August 13 at 6 p.m.

  Whoopup Canyon is an extensive system of roughly 150 rock art panels along a four-mile-long stretch of Dakota sandstone in northeast Wyoming.

  Whoopup was, of course, known to Native Americans for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the first scientific surveys were conducted. At that time, Ralph I. Olinger—Lusk businessman, Wyoming Legislature representative and amateur archaeologist—provided drawings and wrote to University of Denver anthropology professor Etienne B. Renaud detailing his visit to “Whoop-up Canon.”

  Olinger noted of the petroglyphs: “The deer and elk are mostly pictured, but there are mountain goats, antelope, bison, and a few other animals. There seems to be none of horses.” The Olinger account appears to be the first documented field study of Whoopup in historical times.

  Following Olinger’s rediscovery of the Whoopup petroglyphs, W.H. Over, University of South Dakota Museum director, conducted field work on the lower Whoopup petroglyph system in July 1939.

  Lucas Keeler grew up in Newcastle and is a lifelong resident of Wyoming. He enjoys spending time with his family and continues to research and write about forgotten history in and around the Black Hills.