Immediately south of the parking lot, the picnic shelter is the first thing one passes as they enter. Set on a concrete pad, the shelter was provided with a bench and a picnic table, a fine place for a picnic, providing shelter from the sun on a hot day and rain on a stormy day. A plaque affixed to the shelter contains the following information.
This picnic shelter was built with funding from
The Charles M. Bair Family Trust
The Harlowton Milwaukee Depot Board,
members and the community are
grateful for their generosity.
2015
The Charles M. Bair Family were a family of sheep ranchers near Martinsdale who became quite wealthy. Discover more about the Bairs at the
The Bair Family Art Museum.
Harlowton's present Milwaukee Depot is actually is second depot, the first sawed into three pieces and moved to another town. This depot was its replacement. The depot was closed in 1961 and abandoned by the Milwaukee Road in 1980. Shortly after, Harlowton residents began a crusade to save the depot and as much of the yards and outbuildings as they could. They managed to get the site listed on the National Register as the Milwaukee Road Historic District in 1988 while turning the site into the present museum.
As well as the depot, the museum consists primarily of several pieces of rolling stock, a couple of speeders, a truly unique little electric switching engine which ran off an extension cord and a collection of farm machinery where the railway yard once stood. We can't say what treasures the depot itself holds, as the museum was closed the day we passed by and their website is presently under construction, with no available information.