Museum Musings

Right across from our campground  (Pine Near RV Park) in Winthrop, WA was the Shafer Historical Museum. This museum showcases the 1896 home of entrepreneur Guy Waring. It includes 13 buildings, including authentic homestead structures, a stamp mill, machinery and equipment from historic local mines, farming implements, and so much more.

The entrance to the museum is this tower.  The top of the tower houses an old church bell that outlived its original church home that was burned down in 1994.

 

I took this shot of the bell looking directly up from underneath the tower.

Here is a photo of some of the farm and mining equipment  ("Grandpa's Motors") scattered throughout the grounds.  This photo represents just a drop in the proverbial bucket of the amount of equipment that the museum is home to.

This next photo was taken inside one of the buildings and is an assortment of western/pioneer gear including bottles, jugs, lanterns, irons and so much more.

For the next picture, I found this old song … maybe some of you remember it!

School days, school days, good old fashioned rule days

Reading and writing and ‘rithmetic our teacher’s great and we learn ‘em quick

When we started school if we only knew all the great things we’d learn from you

There’s so many things that we can do, now that we go to school

 As I mentioned earlier, all these buildings are basically authentic to the era.  This building pictured below is the Methow Trading Company.  Now, here’s a bit of trivia for you.  I’m betting that you read the name “Methow” pronouncing the “th” in the usual way.  However, that is not the way the name “Methow” (which is the valley in which Winthrop resides) is pronounced.  It is pronounced “Met-how” (say the two words separately as written).  Now, don’t you feel fully educated?

How about the local shop where you can buy the goods to make you look like you just came off the fashion pages of a New York magazine?

 

 

 

These bicycles are all sitting on the porch of a building that houses a number of different displays.

Now let’s go inside some of those displays.  First is the bedroom that includes quilts, a stunning trunk, spinning wheel, chamber pot, pitcher and bowl, rocking chair and more.

 Want to hang around in the living area with a nice fire in that great stone fireplace, rocking back-and-forth, listening to your spouse or children hammer out a tune or two on that piano?  There’s just so much to see in this photo!

The next three pictures are your typical kitchen including everything you could ever need to run your pioneer household!

 

This building is the “Horse and Horseless Carriage” building.  I took a couple of photos of some old cars housed in its interior.

 

How about the doctor’s office?  You talk about “practicing” medicine!

 

Did you notice the spiked metal tires on that tractor below?  The building behind me with all the antlers is representative of a typical Methow Valley home (are you pronouncing Met-how correctly in your head while you're reading now??).  Early trappers, miners, and settlers began life in the Methow Valley in cabins like this one—small, windowless, and with dirt floors.  Isaac “Bud” Nickell built this particular cabin in 1889 near Twin Lakes (also located in the Methow Valley) for his wife Lois and their two children.

 

Interior of the one-room cabin.

 

Exterior (near front door) of the cabin.

This wagon out back has a sign hanging on it that directs you to either “Grandma’s Laundry” or “Grandpa’s Motors”.  We’re going to look at Grandma’s Laundry and be thankful for the modern laundry conveniences we use now!  Don’t you wonder what they’ll be saying 100 years from now about our archaic way of doing laundry today?

Grandpa’s Motors you saw at the beginning of this blog.  So that’s all folks … Shafer Historical Museum!  So many things on which to contemplate and reflect.  We’ve come a long way, baby!