Trail End State Historic Site
A 1913 Flemish Revival mansion turns one family’s original rooms and objects into a close reading of ranch wealth, technology, labor, and public life.
Artwork inspired by James Bama
Completed in 1913 for cattleman John B. Kendrick and his family, Trail End is a 13,748-square-foot Flemish Revival house with more than thirty rooms and four interpreted floors. Kendrick became Wyoming governor in 1915 and a U.S. senator in 1917, making the house both a family residence and a stage for public life. Most furnishings and family objects are original, so room function, wear, correspondence, and small technological choices carry more weight than a generic mansion tour.
Follow the house as a system: servant routes, heating, lighting, telephones, the elevator, built-in vacuum equipment, bathrooms, and garages reveal how early twentieth-century convenience depended on labor and infrastructure. Then connect the refined interiors to Kendrick’s cattle holdings, land, markets, and political power. The self-guided format lets you compare formal entertaining rooms with bedrooms and service spaces; rotating exhibits use family writings to complicate the polished surfaces with illness, war, travel, work, and the Depression.
- Built
- Completed 1913
- Family
- 13,748 square feet
- Allow
- 1–2 hours
Quick guide
- Begin
- Start with room function, service routes, and utilities.
- Do not miss
- Separate original furnishings from later interpretation.
Quick guide
- Establish the chronology
- Look closely at the first stop inside Trail End State Historic Site.
- Read surviving evidence
- Compare that first impression with a second source of evidence.
- Recover a missing perspective
- Notice what changes when the route reaches the next evidence.
- Finish with access in mind
- Check the practical constraint before completing the Trail End State Historic Site route.
Good to know
Trail End is normally self-guided; groups of ten or more seeking a guide must arrange one at least three weeks ahead. All four floors open to visitors, but barriers protect some rooms and objects: no food, drink, touching, or flash photography inside. The mansion closes for winter after mid-December, although special holiday programs can use different hours. Seasonal exhibits change the experience, so a repeat visit is not necessarily a repeat tour.
Notice these
- Completed 1913
- Original rooms and furnishings
- Flemish gables and early home technology