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The environmental legacies left behind by industrial production are pervasive in the air, the soil, and the water. This elemental elixer surrounds us.

In the field of STS, it is perhaps obvious to suggest that institutions have cultures, norms, standards, and professional ways of being. Yet, what are we to make of the results of industry telling its own past publically. The corporate origin story could be a footnote in Joseph's Campbells work. The allure of the lone individual working tirelessly until an innovation is produced and the market takes over. 

Yet, the Wood River Refinery tells a different story. One about place, about people, about the terrible minutia of life lived within bureaucracy. Yes, the story told is glossy and teleological, but the question emerges. What can be learned about the stories industry tells about itself? What do these artifacts contribute to histories and what weight do we give to these stories within the Anthropocene?

The factory at Wood River is both a place where labor is maximized for profit, but also where worker devote 40 precious hours of their week. Lives persist and even thrive in the factory. Are the stories of these lives at Wood River? 

Before our tour at the Weldon Springs Interpretative Center, we were asked not to take any pictures of our tour guide nor of other employees. To be recorded publically, they would have had to obtain an official media clearance. The photo points to these limits, with the metal arch obscuring the group as it listens to the guide. In consequence, there are at least two aspects that should be retained in our written record. First were the upbeat style and delivery of our male guide, that shaped our experience of the exhibition. Our group asked him about his educational background and he briefly explained the process to become a certified interpreter. Second is the fact that we were being accompanied and followed around by a group of about six representatives of the Department of Energy. Our group came to agree that this number and associated costs are significant, pointing towards the attention that our (probably usual?) international group of scholars drew. It might have been curiosity or slight hostility, it's hard to tell, also because we didn't ask them directly. The image certainly captures some lessons and dynamics what it means to visit an educational fieldsite with a larger group in contrast to the 'lone fieldworker.'