Heritage Museum shops around for artifacts from historic area businesses

The staff at the Heritage Museum hope to showcase Libby businesses in days gone past, and to do it properly they are asking the community for help.

Exhibit organizers recently put out a call for donations, looking for artifacts unique to the town’s historic business sector. The emphasis is on storefronts and economic activity predating 1960, officials said.

While the museum has a small collection of business items, very little of it is directly connected to Libby, said Mark Morain, a member of the exhibition committee.

“We have got things that every business in the world would have, but we don’t have a whole lot of stuff that is unique to historic Libby,” he said. “The focus is historic Libby businesses and things that were used that you no longer see today — things young kids probably don’t even know what they are or how they are used.”

Morain cited mechanical cash registers, of which the museum has one in its collection, as an example. Today, “everything is electronic or computerized and nobody even knows what they were,” he said.

Other examples include signs forbidding the wearing of caulk boots inside stores. The nailed boots worn by loggers wreaked havoc on the floors and became the bane of merchants, Morain said.

“That’s the sort of thing that we’re looking for,” he said. “The things that demonstrate the uniqueness of Libby’s character and our heritage.”

But what exactly are staff members hoping for? It’s impossible to say, said Laurie Mari, chair of the exhibit committee.

“The one thing that we’re looking for — we don’t know what it is,” she said. “[Maybe] it’s something that’s kind of unique to Libby that could be represented by some artifact that someone has in their basement.”

Both Morain and Mari cautioned that the staff would not accept all donations. Morain listed the type of items given out commonly as promotions — matchbooks, pins and wooden nickels — as not particularly of interest.

Items related to existing exhibits also were of low interest to the staff for this exhibit. The museum already boasts a section on Libby’s timber industry, for example, Mari said.

“It’s not to say we couldn’t add it to that exhibit also — it’s not — but this exhibit is mostly focusing on the other types of businesses,” she said, listing off grocers, saloons and sporting goods stores as examples.

Donated items would undergo review by the museum staff, Morain said. After the artifacts get vetted and the donors interviewed for any additional information about the pieces, a committee will decide whether to add it to the exhibit, Morain said.

Both stressed that the museum only accepts donations. They do not display items on loan. Residents interested in contributing can contact Mari at 406-293-8260 or Morain at 406-293-8239.

At least one person already has arranged to bring potential donations by the museum, Mari said. They will accept artifacts for the exhibit through Feb. 22. The museum will reopen May 9.

“It’s the idea that businesses have come and gone and some lasted quite a while and they made their mark here,” Mari said.

Both Morain and Mari described the call for donations as a roll of the dice. If it goes unanswered, the museum staff will rely on its existing collection of items to populate the exhibit.

“We don’t really know what to expect, but we’re giving it a shot,” Morain said.