Bozeman was founded in August of 1864 by John Bozeman, a frontiersman from Georgia who led wagon trains west to the gold fields in the Montana Territory along the Bozeman Trail, a cutoff of the Oregon Trail. The town served as a supply hub for prospectors looking to strike it rich near Bannack and Virginia City.
Bozeman became the county seat of Gallatin County in 1867.
The Living History Farm represents a homestead typical of those found in southwestern Montana in 1890 – 1910. The exhibit area includes the Tinsley House, outbuildings, and surrounding gardens and fields.
The house is an original 1889 homestead. The milking barn was built in the early 1900s.
The farm gives visitors an insight into the daily lifestyle of the people who settled in Montana in the late 1800s and an appreciation for its agricultural history. Homesteaders used the resources they had or could acquire, to build their homes, provide food and clothing, and create a sense of community. Their lives were inseparable from labor. Daily chores included cooking, water hauling, wood chopping, and milking while washing clothes, baking bread, and churning butter needed to be done weekly.
Source: Museum of the Rockies
Missourian, William Tinsley traveled to Montana in 1864 to stake his own homestead claim in Willow Creek, MT.
William and his soon to be wife, Lucy Ann Nave met in Virginia City, MT where William worked for the Wells Fargo Stage Company and Lucy worked as a seamstress.
After William and Lucy were married, they moved to William's 160 acre homestead claim in Willow Creek and built a modest one room cabin in 1867.
Eight children and 20 years later, the Tinsley family began building the house that is now the Museum of the Rockies Living History Farm centerpiece. The Tinsley Family occupied this house on the original homestead claim until around 1920.
Transcribed from sign
Singer Sewing Machine
1923
Model: 66 Red Eye Treadle
Serial Number: G8863799
This 1923 Singer treadle sewing machine is easily identified by the unique motif displayed on the sewing machine head identified as a model 66 Red Eye. A search of the serial number verified it was manufactured in 1923.
The cabinet is a standard wooden four small drawer model, ordinarily seen on most Singer sewing machines of this era.
Isaac Merritt Singer formed I.M. Singer & Company with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark, following Singer's first lockstitch sewing machine patent. The Singer Sewing Machine was for sale all over the United States. Within two years Singer was the leading manufacturer and marketer of sewing machines in the United States.
Source: Singer Sewing Machine