Still the only all brick building in Clinton, the museum itself is older than many of the artefacts to be found within, having been built of locally fired bricks in 1892. It served as a school until 1925 and again from 1945 to 1951. The museum opened in the building in 1956.
Inside the old schoolhouse are memorabilia and artefacts donated to the museum over the years covering many aspects of local history. The centre of the room holds larger artefacts while the walls are lined with display cases stuffed with artefacts. Above are dozens of old photos chronicling the early days of Clinton.
A yard at the rear of the schoolhouse, surrounded by a chain link fence, contains a collection of tractors, farm machinery, vehicles, a blacksmith shop and wagons, including an 1860s freight wagon. At the rear is a large barn housing more displays, which include pioneer family exhibits and many artefacts from the ranching and logging eras that followed the Gold Rush.
In front of the schoolhouse, flanking the sidewalk leading in, are a pair of 1868 millstones, imported from France and used in a grist mill at Soda Creek, then the largest mill on the B.C. mainland. Altogether, this is a very well stocked and presented small town museum. The Clinton Visitor Centre is also inside the Museum, with racks of travel information brochures & maps. Staff and volunteers inside will be able answer any visitors' questions.
The Clinton Museum
At the beginning of the Cariboo gold rush there were two paths to get into the Interior of the Province. Travelers could either brave the route along the Fraser River on the Cariboo Wagon Road or travel up the Harrison-Lillooet Trail. Either way, the road chosen went through “the Junction” at 47 Mile.
47 Mile House, later renamed the Clinton Hotel, was a favorite resting place for those heading for the gold in Barkerville. But the travelers required more than just a place to rest. A general store and a blacksmith were needed early on and by 1892, Clinton boasted shops, a bank, a telegraph office, a courthouse and the burgeoning town required a larger schoolhouse. Ed Norton was making bricks out of clay from the Clinton area and was given the contract to build the one-room school. He may not have been charging enough as his brick-building business closed in 1898, making the little brick schoolhouse a unique rarity for Clinton.
The one and only brick house, then and now.
At one time, the school sported a bell tower complete with a brass bell donated by Sir Richard McBride, a well-known provincial politician. The bell was later melted down for the “war effort” and the bell tower removed.
The brick building was used as a school and later, when the original courthouse burned down, a substitute courthouse. When a trial was in session, the children were sent outside to play. When yet another larger school was built, the little brick building was used solely as a courthouse.
The little brick schoolhouse entered its next phase of usefulness by becoming a museum when, in May of 1956, the South Cariboo Museum and Historical Society opened its doors. In 1999 the museum also acquired and moved the then 88-year-old Provincial Government Stable, filling it with their ample collection of historical artifacts. The only building ever made out of Clinton bricks is not only historical itself, but today is filled with the history of the entire area.
From Explore Gold Country