Livingston, Montana: The Yellowstone Gateway Museum announces the opening of a new WWI exhibit commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Great War. The free gala event will be held on Veterans’ Day, Saturday, November 11, from 1-6 p.m. New biographies of local WWI veterans and newly displayed artifacts expand the Pioneer Room’s military exhibit. Special WWI-inspired appetizers and beverages will be served. The museum hopes to also feature music of the era.

New stories of World War I veterans include Elizabeth (Sandelius) Benbow, William Allen Hunter, Roland Kaiser (and the Kaiser family), and Ray Yardley, Sr. Also on exhibit are bios of WWI veterans Eugene Knoke, Andrew F. Peterson, Jr., Thomas “Tommy” Ray, and Marvin E. Wright. Photos, uniforms, equipment, and archival material, including letters and postcards sent from France to Montana during WWI, and original stone lithographs by French artist Jules Abel Faivre, will be exhibited. Recently donated large-format Haberstroh photographs of servicemen departing from the Livingston Depot in 1917 and post-war, marching in a Victory Parade in downtown Livingston, will also be on exhibit.

The Honoring Park County Veterans exhibit chronicles the poignant stories and displays artifacts of the men and women who served in the military from the Civil War to present day, including the Spanish American Philippine War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. The Livingston homefront is richly interpreted with numerous artifacts from the museum’s collections. The new WWI exhibit will be displayed for at least one year.

The WWI exhibit is made possible by donations given in memory of Susan Kraft who served on the museum’s county board for many years. Among other projects, she conducted military research and interviewed local veterans for our exhibit and for military programs that she presented in Livingston and at the 2015 Montana History Conference. Please contact the museum if you have information about local veterans who have served (or are serving) in the military.

If you are interested in preparing a WWI recipe to share at the event, please call Karen Reinhart at 406-222-4184. Keep up-to-date with our programming by visiting our website, www.yellowstonegatewaymuseum.org.