RAWLINS, Wyo. — In 1812, Dan Kinnaman can tell you, Oregon travelers dipped into the northern part of what became early Carbon County.
In 1825, Dan Kinnaman can tell you, a group of trappers traversed the landscape of the county's current incarnation along the Overland Trail.
And in 1957, Dan Kinnaman can tell you, he married Angie Marken.
Or maybe it was 1961.
"Wait, we got married in 1961, wasn't it?" Dan asked Angie on a crisp March morning in the study of their Rawlins home of four decades.
"We got married in '58," Angie said, biting a grin.
"'58. '58. OK."
"Dana was born in '59. And we came to Rawlins in '61 — Aug. 1 of 1961."
They laughed.
"Are there any other dates, dear?" Angie teased.
"I'm not very good at years," Dan said.
This from a man surrounded by towers of folders swollen with handwritten accounts of local births, marriages and deaths.
"Well, we were both working in Salt Lake City in 1957," he offered, referring to their engineering jobs in a missile factory.
Dan has strong Wyoming ties. His namesake and grandfather Daniel C. Kinnaman built Union Pacific Railroad pipelines and pump stations in Carbon County. His father Elmer Kinnaman served 34 years in the Wyoming State Legislature.
Dan was born in Rawlins and lived here most of his 78 years. In 1961 he and Angie moved to Rawlins and took over the third-generation family business, Kinnaman Supply Company. He worked there 35 years, amassing research for a book about local history on the side. Then in 1996 he retired and published, "A Little Piece of Wyoming," an account of Carbon County history through 1869.
Since then, he's been compiling a second volume, local history from 1869 through the 1920s or '30s — maybe even the '40s. He visits the library in Rawlins nearly every day it's open.
"Not everybody that retires has an interest they can just walk into," Angie said. "The same solid eight hours he spent at the store he spends on his book."
Indexing, the Internet and other ideas
On a recent March afternoon, Dan Kinnaman scoured the Internet from the Carbon Room of the Carbon County Library System for Jacob Stone Flory.
"As usually happens, I've got copies of pages, but it seems like it's not exactly complete," Dan said, as he looked for Flory's books, which describes Saratoga circa 1873 as a settlement of about a dozen log cabins, a store, a post office and an undeveloped hot springs.
"When I do the section on Saratoga, I'd like to put his words and his descriptions in there," he said.
Dan checked his prospects on the Internet, digs through results and pans PDFs via hotkeys. He comes up short, but he's thankful for the technology.
"It's nice because you can get things on the Internet like the U.S. Census, or the Wyoming Newspaper Project and Ancestry.com," Dan said, recalling difficulties with the his first book. "I don't have any desire to look at that stuff the old way. . You'd find something, just pages and pages of information, and you'd have to read the whole darn thing to find what you were looking for."
That can be especially hard with local history when you look for a Miller, Larsen or Martinez, he said, adding, "It'd take you a long time to go through that, but when you can search for something it's faster."
At home, Angie said Dan often talks about the project.
"Sometimes it's right after he gets home. 'I had a really good day, and I found such and such,' or, 'It was a really bad day. I couldn't even find the person I was looking for,'" Angie said. "I'm probably his sounding board. . We have completely different interests, I have mine and he has his, but dinner is always the big sharing time."
Big family time
Kinnaman family dinner conversations during the 1970s and '80s are part of what started Dan's interest in Carbon County history.
"I have these two sons and we used to talk," he said, referring to Andrew and John Kinnaman. "You know how kids are. They said, 'Well nothing ever happened here in Rawlins and nothing ever will.' And I thought, gee whiz, I'll see if I can find out what did happen."
The hobby gained momentum and continued after both sons moved to California.
"It became sort of an obsession, and I've just continued it," Dan said.
He relates a similar story in the forward to "A Little Piece of Wyoming," although he doesn't name names. The volume was Jackalope Printing's first book, and although the original run of 350 is gone, it can still be found at the Rawlins store.
"A Little Piece of Wyoming" is dedicated to his daughter "Dana Michelle Kinnaman (1959-1976), who will forever rest in her little piece of Wyoming."
Dan's new book is still being researched and written, and he hasn't set a deadline. Still, he said, it shouldn't take as long as the first one.
His wife often fields questions about it.
"People ask me when the book is going to be published, and I say, hopefully pretty soon," Angie said, laughing. "Dan is a little shy about things, especially since he's retired. I'm the more outgoing and aggressive one."
Angie mentioned Dan's years of service on the Carbon County District 1 School Board, the state school board, the Wyoming Legislature, the University of Wyoming trustee board and the state library board. Dan did not.
Just about every day Dan begins working on his project around 9 a.m. and finishes around 11:30 p.m.
"That's his life. And in between, we walk the dog," Angie said. "His name is Rawlie — R-A-W-L-I-E — for Rawlins, of course."
Information from: Rawlins Daily Times, http://www.rawlinstimes.com