Owned and operated by the Broadwater County Historical Society, which held its first meeting on August 21, 1970, the society worked for two years toward opening the Broadwater County Museum. Construction began in April 1974 and, though not yet open to the public, the society held its first annual meeting to take place in the completed building a year later. Continuing to expand thereafter, work on a new addition to the museum was completed in 2000. Featured within the new addition are a "
half-scale model of a dugout canoe of the type Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery built on their voyage along the upper Missouri. Also featured are an authentic sheep herders wagon, a horse drawn carriage and a buffalo skin."
The Museum features an extensive historical library,
The Eleanor Marks Library. Included in the library are copies of most of the local newspapers, dating back to the 1800s. The library also has extensive records of obituaries of local residents and the location of their burial, as well as links to comprehensive information on the cemeteries and burial sites in Broadwater County.
Within the museum are a wealth of artefacts relating to the story of the people of Broadwater County, including domestic life, business life, agricultural life and cultural life. Of interest to many who visit the Museum are the
Family History files, which contain histories of many local families, both past and present.
In the
Homemaking section of the museum is a quite complete collection of utensils, containers and appliances which would have been found in the well appointed kitchen of the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, including this vintage wooden butter churn, a Porter Blanchard's Sons No. 5
automatic butter maker. We know that the No. 4 made four pounds of butter, so we'll speculate that the No. 5 would have made five pounds per batch.
The Blanchard churn : the celebrated automatic butter maker
Patented June 4, 1878 by Porter Blanchard's Sons, sole manufacturers for the world - Concord, NH
Porter Blanchard (1788-1871) began making drums, later churns in Concord NH in 1818. Later, he took his sons into business and it was known as Porter Blanchard Sons Co. After Porter Blanchard's death, the manufacture of churns was continued by "Porter Blanchard's Sons," who are known to have shipped them around the world. In 1888 the factory burned for the third time after which, in 1890, George Blanchard, a son, started making churns in Nashua NH.
From The Farmers' Museum