Archives West Finding Aid

Mike McClure was a Wyoming photographer. He moved to Lander, Wyoming in 1948 when he was about 10 years old with his mother, who practiced medicine. McClure’s career began in 1960 as photo editor of the Daily Collegian at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he earned a B.A. in journalism. He moved to United Press International Newspictures and the Detroit Free Press before returning home to Wyoming in 1971. Publication of the Wyoming State Land Use Plan in 1979 gave Michael his first opportunity to create a border-to-border photographic essay about the state. In 1980, he was awarded a grant from the Wyoming Council for the Humanities and the Union Pacific Railroad for “Wyoming Tradition and Transition,” a 74 photograph exhibit still housed at the Wyoming State Museum and considered a documentary resource. In 1983, Ansel Adams awarded Michael a scholarship to attend his week-long photography workshop in Carmel, California. He has also studied with Jerry Uelsmann, John Sexton, and Robert Gilka. In the late 1990s, while researching and writing his book "Camping in Wyoming," Michael began documenting rarely seen historic sites in remote areas of the state. Through grants from the Wyoming Council for the Humanities, the Wyoming Arts Council, the NEA/USFS, and Fremont Motor Company of Wyoming, Michael produced a 90 photograph interpretive exhibit, “Artifact: A Cultural Geography of Wyoming.” That exhibit opened at the State Museum in 2003 and remains in the museum’s traveling exhibits program. He also published a book of the same name. Michael received a Governor’s Arts Award in 2007 in Cheyenne. His body of work encompasses almost 50 years and documented many changes across Wyoming. McClure passed away on November 28, 2008 after a long illness.