The Daily Inter Lake recently profiled Brec Gibson, the student who created 3-D models for the train layout to be featured in our renovated “timber room.”
Read all about it here — thanks to reporter Hilary Matheson’s thorough story. Above, Matheson interviews (from left) Gibson, Kalispell Public Schools’ Mike Kelly, and museum board member Bill Dakin, who all made the partnership happen.
The Northwest Montana History Museum recently received a donation of military memorabilia that includes a harrowing story from Harry Anderson, a Kalispell native and 1940 graduate of Flathead High School (he is at far right in the front row).
Anderson served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service during World War II. Assigned to the USS Perch SS-313, Ensign Anderson and crew survived a grueling, two-hour depth charge attack in the Java Sea while on patrol in April 1945. Anderson recorded the 31 depth charges dropped on the submarine in real time with tick marks on a piece of paper (shown).
That faint and fragile paper, along with Ensign Anderson’s personal account of the two-hour attack, went on display May 10 at the museum as part of the exhibit The Silent Service: A WWII Diving Denizen of the Deep.
The exhibit includes Anderson’s gold dolphins pin (awarded to officers) and his combat pin of a successful patrol, along with other medals. Numerous photos enhance the exhibit: the crew of the Perch; Perch officers on deck with one holding Duchess, the submarine’s dog; and Duchess standing on a deck gun.
Were dogs allowed on board during tours of duty? Find out more about the dogs that went on patrol with their crew at the exhibit.
In addition to Ensign Anderson’s memorabilia, other submariner items are on display: a Vietnam era U.S. Navy Submariner Torpedoman’s dress uniform, a child’s sailor uniform from the 1940s, vintage sailor hats and other related submarine items.
Details: Regular museum hours run 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays from June through August
Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 Second Ave. E., Kalispell; 406-756-8381; nwmthistory.org
Have you heard this catchy tune written in 1907 by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards?
School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
’Reading and ’riting and ’rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick
Rekindle memories of school days of yore, or explore what it was like for kids years ago, at a new temporary exhibit, Timeless Lessons at Central School 1894-1969, opening at the Northwest Montana History Museum. The exhibit celebrates 75 years of formal instruction at Kalispell’s Central School—now home to the museum—and features an array of classroom items that represent various time periods throughout those years. The exhibit through December 2024.
The classroom exhibit includes a teacher’s desk with a 1925 report card and a confiscated slingshot, a poster that adorned a Central School classroom in the 1930s (above), an 1897 ledger of school attendance and grades written in beautiful penmanship, a chalkboard eraser, 1937 poster artwork to supplement lesson assignments, vintage games played during indoor and outdoor recesses, a 46-star United States flag, and a 1950s microphone used by school choirs. In addition, the exhibit is enhanced by a display of vintage clothing worn by a teacher and students.
A hands-on area for children completes the exhibit. Among the activities are practicing cursive writing, viewing replicas of turn of the century 3D travel cards using a stereoscope and learning about different cultures through paper dolls.
The exhibit opens with free admission and refreshments 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, April 12.
Details:
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, April 12, 2024
Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 2nd Ave. E., Kalispell, MT 59901; 406-756-8381; nwmthistory.org
Our oldest exhibit, Sand Monkeys, Tie Hacks, and River Pigs, is closed for renovation. Don’t worry: It will still focus on the timber industry when it reopens this summer, but now will include a model train layout that includes the Somers tie plant and 3D models of Kalispell landmarks!
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
All other exhibits remain open.
Above: Board members (from left) Rod Wallette, Bill Dakin, and Alex Berry as well as Casey Malmquist from SmartLam measure up the museum elevator in advance of the renovation of our “timber room,” now under way.
Raymond (“Ray”) Weaver (1892-1964) returned to Kalispell from World War I in 1919 with permanent lung damage from a mustard gas attack in the trenches of France.
On returning home, Weaver picked up a camera and seemingly never put it down. From the swimmers of Woodland Park to an auto accident downtown, or shoppers bustling along Main Street, Weaver documented with a sharp eye, strong sense of composition, and a feel for everyday life in a midcentury American town.
See a dozen images from a keen observer of the Kalispell scene over decades.
Snowshoes are a shoo-in for our next 10 Items exhibit focused on Recreation. Above, North Fork kids circa 1931 show off their favored mode of winter transport in an image from the Northwest Montana History Museum’s collection.
The 10 Items exhibits run in one of the museum’s two temporary galleries and showcase items from the collection that fit a theme. The recreation-focused exhibit follows on The Way We Wore, 10 uniforms worn by Flathead Valley residents as they went about work, school, and fun.
Find out nine other ways Flathead Valley residents enjoyed themselves when the exhibit opens 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, at your history museum, 124 Second Ave. E., Kalispell. Admission is free, and refreshments provided! See you then and there.
Painter, printmaker and woodcarver Kathleen Frank hiked Montana for weeks last summer and then holed up in her studio making paintings of what she saw.
Her colorful large-scale works depict historic sites of western Montana, from St. Mary Lake to the Bitterroot Valley. The works will hang in one of the museum’s two temporary galleries starting next month (June), following on Jeff Corwin’s landscape photography.
Frank’s introduction to Montana was about 20 years ago on a trip to a horse ranch, where she and others spent time setting up teepees, sleeping outside and hiking. She recalls sitting around the campfire in the evening listening to stories told by the Blackfeet.
Between her first trip to Montana and her more recent one, Frank has ventured widely, usually in the great outdoors. Her landscapes tend to focus on the American Southwest, where she travels multiple times throughout the year to hike and take photos of the views for her artwork.
Details:
Opening reception 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 9, 2023, free admission
Show runs through October 2023
Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 2nd Ave. E., Kalispell, MT 59901; 406-756-8381; nwmthistory.org
The uniforms stand at the ready in our new “10 Items” exhibit focusing on “The Way We Wore.” You’ll never see a cleaner Dairy Queen getup. Also featured: Oddfellows gear, hats for many occasions, and a meter maid outfit (including the incredibly courteous note that out -of-town visitors received despite lack of parking skill). Dozens turned out at the opening Dec. 15 to see the new offerings and share in some holiday cheer. With the area foresters partying on the second floor, it was quite a lively night.
Also downtstairs and across the hall from the uniforms, Jeff Corwin’s photography of Western landscapes, many of them Montanan, show vistas from all over, including Norris (above).
Corwin’s photography stays up through April, the uniforms through August.
However, you might as well visit soon because our decorations and bits of holiday history that appeared in every room–courtesy volunteers and a hundred schoolkids from Bigfork to Kalispell–many only be up for another week or two. Don’t miss ’em!
If you missed our open house Dec. 1, never fear: The decorations stay up through December.
Volunteers led the effort to have dozens of kids from Kalispell to Bigfork decorate our museum, as explained in-depth by reporter Hilary Matheson at the Daily Inter Lake (https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2022/dec/01/local-youths-help-decorate-museum-history-mind/).
Every room received a festive, historic, and regional touch, from information about how Montana trees went to Washington, D.C., to holiday celebrations by Glacier National Park employees.
Come visit, and see for yourself. Happy Holidays!
“Landscapes of the American West: Photography of Jeff Corwin” Dec. 15, 2022-April 30, 2033
“10 Items: The Way We Wore” Dec. 15, 2022-August 31, 2033
Join us for an opening reception 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, at the Northwest Montana History Museum.
On Dec. 15, museum visitors will get two exhibits for the price of none as the Northwest Montana History Museum opens new shows in its two temporary-exhibit spaces.
After 40-plus years working in commercial photography around the world, Montana photographer Jeff Corwin turned to fine art and found inspiration in landscape. Of the 17 pieces in “Landscapes of the American West,” most feature rural views of Montana, including areas near Sourdough, Dillon, Livingston and Wilsall. Two images are of Eastern Washington.
A vacation near Ennis planted the seed for Corwin’s move to east of Bozeman. Now he lives in Cardwell, where he’s building a house. Even so, Corwin says, “I go out and shoot every day.”
His work speaks to the quieter country. “I tend towards the emptiness of landscapes, not the glory of mountains and meadow and late afternoon light,” he says. “I don’t seek out that emptiness, but after so many years, just react to it.”
From a pillowlike snowfield constrained only by a fence in Bozeman, to the lush green leadup to a low butte in Rapelje, Corwin finds much to focus on and frame in his Montana journey.
“The Way We Wore” represents the latest in the “10 Items” installations for which curators take a roundabout look at the collection and present a select group to illustrate a certain theme.
Volunteers Judy Elwood and Sharon Bristow and board member Jane Renfrow will put on display a selection of uniforms connected to the Flathead Valley.
Most of us know the psychological impact of pride felt at the act of putting on a uniform, whether enlisting in military service or joining a sports team or club. The people who wore the uniforms included in the exhibit must have felt a similar thrill. They signaled the high honor of belonging.
The uniforms prepared for the exhibit range from a 1950s Boy Scout uniform and a nurse’s cape and cap to school gym clothing and a band uniform from the Kalispell Fire Department. Also included: a ceremonial coat that belonged to Judge Joseph E. Rockwood, a member of the Patriarchs Militant of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Rockwood served two terms as a judge in the 11th Judicial District, then two terms in the Montana House of Representatives. His 1920s home, on the National Register of Historic Places, stands at 835 First Ave. East.
Details:
5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022; free admission
Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 Second Ave. East, Kalispell; 406-756-8381
