Steven Dacus-CEO

Steven Dacus grew up in Casper Wyoming and even as a child, had a deep interest and desire for American History. When the movie "Dances With Wolves" came out in 1990, it solidified his passion for the American Civil War. After graduating from Oklahoma State University with a BS in Fire Protection Engineering, Steve fought fire as a wildland firefighter with a variety of federal and state agencies and settled back in Casper, Wyoming when he accepted a position as a firefighter/EMT with the Casper Fire Department.

After moving back to his hometown, he started volunteering at Fort Caspar Museum as a docent and helped plan and execute the 150th Anniversary of the major conflict at the fort in 2015. He started becoming a "hobby-historian" while researching western cavalry and quickly became obsessed with primary records and researching at local, state, and federal archives. After becoming frustrated with having hundreds of folders on his computer in an effort to organize all of the different primary records,  dozens of spreadsheets, and countless notes, he decided to make his own research database that would make it easier than ever to search and access all the primary records he had scanned. That initial effort quickly escalted into the public database known as the Research Arsenal. 
 

Steve's mission with the database is to tell "the rest of the story" of the soldiers who fought and died in the American Civil War, as well as their wives, mothers, and loved ones left at home. Steve's objective is to accent the amazing work that Ancestry.com and Fold3.com have done and help expand on the story of that time period of American History.