Near the south end of town at Callahan Creek, the museum is housed in Troy's one time Great Northern Railway depot. Among other things, one will find a rock drill, a walk behind, horse drawn cultivator, an old Farmall tractor, a Great Northern caboose and other artefacts scattered about. The building itself was moved onto the museum property some time after it ceased to be used as a railway depot by the Great Northern.
On the north side of the building are a pair of historical markers, giving the visitor a glimpse into a bit of the history of Troy and of the fauna of the area.
This marker tells the visitor of the movers & shakers from the two industrial eras which Troy experienced, first the mining boom, them the logging era.
The Major Players in the Callahan Boom Period
The Big Eight Mine: William Houston originally located The Big Eight Mine in 1890. Houston recorded two lode claims, the Heron Lode and the Cabinet Lode, on September 30th, 1890. These two claims changed hands several times and were first recorded as the Big Eight Mine on July 15, 1896. Several newspaper articles appeared over the next few years about the Big Eight and work being done and on March 4, 1912 there was an article in the Western News about a man named Judson Martin who lost his life when lighting a series of powder charges at the mine site when one exploded.
The Snow Storm Mine: The Snow Storm Mine was originally located and filed as two lode claims known as the Banner and Bangle Mines in 1893, and by 1895 ore from the mines was being processed. Horses packed the ore out a a cost of S8 per ton for 8 miles. Under Leo Greenough's direction, Snow Storm Consolidated Mines was formed, and by 1916 work began on construction of the concentrator in Troy, and the narrow gauge railroad which, by 1917, would begin shipping ore out of the mines in the Callahan Creek drainage.
Montana Morning Mine: The Montana Mining and Milling Company [was] formed in or around 1906. The company began with three claims but added nine more claims during the period of 1906 to 1915. These twelve claims were known as the Montana Morning Mine. In 1916 the Snowstorm Silver-Lead Company who operated this mine along with its other mining claims purchased the Montana Morning Mine.
Sandpoint Lumber and Pole Company (1920-1931): In December of 1919, the U.S. Forest Service advertised a timber sale located up the Callahan Creek drainage. This sale was for the removal of approximately 60,000,000 board feet (60,000,000 board feet is equal to about 12,000 log truck loads) of timber to be removed over approximately 3000 acres. One of the conditions of the sale was that the successful bidder manufacture the lumber in northwest Montana. In April of 1920 the Sandpoint Lumber and Pole Company, owned by brothers Horace and Frank Culver, was awarded the sale at the rate of $4.25 per thousand board feet. Construction of the sawmill and extension of the railroad past the mining claims to access the timber sale area started in the summer of 1922. The sawmill and railroad were a buzz of activity until July, 27, 1928 when a fire destroyed the sawmill. Three years later another fire destroyed the remainder of the mill site housing the planning mill bringing the end of the sawmill in Troy.
(For more detailed information please see Callahan Creek Historic Mining and Logging District by Jim Calvi - 1993)
From the Historical Marker