**At the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum from August 20, 2024 – October 8, 2024**
The story of human history is written in inventions and innovations. People are problem solvers. Sometimes we invent–create a completely new thing or a process based on new ideas. More often, we innovate–that is, we introduce a fresh idea or an invention into use in some way that creates new way of doing or thinking.
All it takes is a spark–an idea–to get started.
Those sparks are happening right now in small towns across America. Daring individuals are coming together to turn community problems into real solutions. This innovative spirit is crucial to sustaining the vitality of rural places and feeds the nation’s continuous need for fresh thinking and new solutions.
But innovation flourishes in some rural places and not others. Spark! Places of Innovation seeks to answer the question, “Why?”
Spark! is a Museum on Main Street exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution. It is inspired by Places of Invention, an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
Spark! Places of Innovation has been made possible in Buffalo, Wyoming by Wyoming Humanities. Museum on Main Street is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide that serve the small-town cultural organizations and citizens of rural America.
Spark! Places of Innovation is supported in Wyoming by the Wyoming Community Foundation.
Click here to visit the Smithsonian SITES webpage for Spark!
The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum is offering free programs while Spark! Places of Innovation is in Buffalo, Wyoming.
September 10: “At the Drive-In” documentary, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Buffalo Theater, 235 S. Main Street
September 17: Spark! Game Night, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., World of Gaming, 235 S. Main Street, Suite B.
September 24: “Hog Town” documentary, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Buffalo Theater, 235 S. Main Street
October 1: Spark! Game Night, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., World of Gaming, 235 S. Main Street, Suite B.
