About the Taylor Wilderness Research Station Archive

The Taylor Wilderness Research Station Archive preserves and shares over 40 years of wilderness research, stories, and experiences through a rich collection of digital materials. This archive features video interviews, archival documents, artifacts, research outputs, photographs, and ephemera collected from those who have made Taylor the unique and transformative place it has been for decades.

Read an in-depth History of Taylor Here

The Collection

The Taylor Archive contains a diverse range of materials that tell multifaceted stories about this special place:

• Documents: Over 1,500 PDFs including research papers, correspondence, and reports
• Images: More than 100 photographs documenting life and research at the station
• Videos: Oral history interviews capturing personal experiences and scientific insights
• Data: Research datasets and visualizations revealing patterns and trends

Located in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, the Taylor Wilderness Research Station provides unique research opportunities in watersheds, wildlife, vegetation, weather, climate, and history. Surrounded by 2.3 million acres of wilderness, this remote location allows for studying areas with minimal human impact.

Project Development

The Taylor Wilderness Research Station Archive represents five years of dedicated work by a collaborative team of students, library staff, librarians, and faculty from the University of Idaho. This project exemplifies the power of interdisciplinary collaboration in preserving and sharing important scientific and cultural heritage.

Special recognition goes to:

• Hannah Wilson Creel, who transported the archive’s boxes from Taylor by plane and car to the University of Idaho Library for digitization and description and wrote a tremendous StoryMap history of Taylor for the project
• Jack Kredell, who spent a year collecting oral history interviews for the project, documenting the experiences and insights of researchers, staff, and visitors to Taylor
• Andrew Weymouth, Digital Initiatives Librarian, who created visualizations to enhance and highlight trends from the collection through bibliometric visualizations and geographic/oral history hybrid animations
• Our Interviewees, The twelve individuals who agreed to be interviewed for this collection were gracious with their time and forthcoming with their thoughts and memories. We really appreciate them and their contributions. Special thanks to Ed Krumpe and Grace Peven for participating in a Renfrew Colloquium panel during the release of this project.

The Significance of Taylor

The area was first homesteaded by “Cougar” Dave Lewis, but served as a home to the Western Shoshone for centuries. The University of Idaho has owned and operated the Taylor Wilderness Research Station since 1970.

The collection tells multiple interconnected stories about Taylor:

• Personal stories: Daily experiences of researchers and staff living in wilderness
• Scientific stories: Decades of ecological research and environmental monitoring
• Bureaucratic stories: The administrative history of maintaining a research station in a federally designated wilderness
• Cultural stories: The human relationship with wilderness and how it shapes our understanding of natural spaces

The log books in this collection provide fascinating insights into daily events at the station, ranging from routine research and maintenance tasks to wildlife sightings and firsthand accounts of dramatic events like forest fires and evacuations.

Research and Education

Researchers at Taylor Ranch engage in diverse activities including recording climate and ecological data, tracking wildlife populations, monitoring vegetation, examining forest fire impacts, and studying human-environment interactions. The facility also hosts interns, undergraduate researchers, and educational workshops for students from high school through graduate level.

The visualizations created for this archive help reveal patterns and connections within the research data that might otherwise remain hidden, providing new insights into the scientific work conducted at Taylor over the decades.

Funding and Support

Funding for this project was graciously provided by The College of Natural Resources and the University of Idaho Library.

Special thanks to the following individuals:

• CNR Dean Dennis Becker
• Library Dean Ben Hunter
• Janet DeVlieg Pope