{"id":439971,"date":"2026-01-31T01:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439971\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T01:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:50:07","slug":"the-great-pronghorn-massacre-wind-wipes-out-herd-of-museums-pronghorn-statues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439971\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Pronghorn Massacre: Wind Wipes Out Herd Of Museum’s Pronghorn Statues"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Campbell County Rockpile Museum in Gillette has completely recovered from the Pronghorn Massacre of 2025.<\/p>\n

No, there wasn\u2019t a tragic wildlife die-off in northern Wyoming. The massacre was the loss of 10 life-size pronghorn statues, destroyed in a windstorm while they were in a trailer\u00a0enroute to Gillette from Nebraska in December.<\/p>\n

Fortunately,\u00a010 new pronghorn statues arrived<\/a>\u00a0at the Rockpile Museum this week. They will soon be painted and placed outside before a fundraising auction put on by the Rockpile Museum Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to be asked to make a phone call to our contact (in Nebraska) when they were delivered,\u201d said Tara Stoneking, business manager of the Rockpile Museum Association. \u201cWhen I called, she said, \u2018I was kind of nervous seeing your number pop up,\u2019 but I let her know that they arrived safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smashed To Smithereens<\/p>\n

Stoneking said the Rockpile Museum Association ordered the 10 fiberglass pronghorn\u00a0statues\u00a0in October 2025 for their Parade of Pronghorns fundraiser. Each statue was to be painted by a different Wyoming artist, then auctioned off to raise funds for the museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an incredible company, Icon Poly out of Nebraska, create the statues for us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe narrowed down our order to 10 pronghorn for 10 artists, and had Icon Poly fulfill the order.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pronghorn statues were finished by December and loaded onto a trailer. Icon Poly personnel would make the delivery themselves, driving 562 miles from Gibbon, Nebraska, to Gillette.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately,\u00a0the\u00a0day they chose for the drive was Dec. 18. They had no way of knowing that would be the same day\u00a0a particularly intense windstorm<\/a>\u00a0swept across Wyoming, with wind gusts as high as 100 mph reported in northern Wyoming.<\/p>\n

The light-weight fiberglass pronghorn didn\u2019t stand a chance. According to Stoneking, the statues and the trailer carrying them got blown off the road, tipped over, and were destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll 10 of our pronghorn succumbed to the wind and totaled (Icon Poly\u2019s) trailer as well,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was a hard phone call to take. They told us this was the first time that\u2019d happened to them in the history of their company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Got It Covered<\/p>\n

The bad news is that all the pronghorn statues were destroyed. The good news is that they were all covered by insurance.<\/p>\n

Stoneking said Icon Poly quickly replaced the pulverized pronghorn with 10 new statues. This came at no cost to the Rockpile Museum Association, thanks to Icon Poly\u2019s insurance.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the 10 new statues arrived safely and intact at the Rockpile Museum. Icon Poly took no chances this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sent everything via FedEx Freight this time,\u201d Stoneking said. \u201cWe’re all very excited that they are here and ready for pickup and painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parade Of Pronghorns<\/p>\n

The 10 fiberglass pronghorns are currently being picked up by the 10 artists selected for the Parade of Pronghorns fundraiser. Artists from Greybull, Lander, Buffalo, Cheyenne, and Wheatland, along with five from Gillette, were selected from dozens of applicants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of having to tell the artists to hurry up and wait since October,\u201d Stoneking said. \u201cThey\u2019re coming, no, they’re not, hold on, they’re not here yet. Now, they are here and ready to be picked up.<\/p>\n

Stoneking said the artists will bring their painted pronghorns to the Rockpile Museum by May 8, the same day that the museum\u2019s annual Sheepherder\u2019s Festival begins. \u00a0They\u2019ll be on public display in front of the museum for the entire summer.<\/p>\n

The Rockpile Museum Association will host an auction for the 10 statues on Sept. 10. All funds raised will go toward the association\u2019s general fund, which assists the museum with programs, acquisitions, and a summer internship program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an overwhelming response from artists, and the fact that we had to narrow it down to 10 was hard,\u201d Stoneking said. \u201cThe Parade of Pronghorns is something that we would love to see and host again, and we\u2019re eager to see its success this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulverized Pronghorn<\/p>\n

It\u2019s legal to collect roadkill from Wyoming\u2019s highways, but nobody was able to recover the pronghorn alongside the highway in December. Since they were \u201csmashed to bits,\u201d Stoneking said all the pieces and the destroyed trailer were quickly cleared away.<\/p>\n

Stoneking has some hope that pronghorn pieces might still exist and could be recovered. Pieces of pronghorn could still have some value to benefit the Rockpile Museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re actually trying to see if we can hunt down any salvageable pieces,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were told they all got scooped up and totaled, but we could still use a horn or a hind quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Campbell County Rockpile Museum in Gillette has completely recovered from the Pronghorn Massacre of 2025. No, there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-439971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}