September-October, 2021
My friends knew about this old town museum from prior visits to the area, but they hadn’t been to see it. We all wanted to go, with good reason. It’s right in the heart of Winthrop, just one block up the hill from the center of town. It’s called the Shafer Historical Museum. It was fantastic! Way more than I expected.
We didn’t see everything … there wasn’t time. Even of the things we did see, I didn’t take pictures of everything. And I’m not sharing all the pictures I did take here, just too many photos. But here are some highlights. Click on photos to enlarge them.
In a different builing (not the schoolhouse!) was this display below.
Olivia Hall’s talents were greatly appreciated here in the sometimes rough western world.
The “Castle” was the very large home (large by standards in those days, and in these parts) … it was the home of Guy Waring, one of the first settlers here. That home was built in 1891 and was moved, intact, to this Shafer Museum. Here are some interior photos of the “Castle”.
The photo below is of the original woodstove in the master bedroom. Obviously, the woodstove is no longer working, but you can see the metal circle above the woodstove where the chimney/flue would have gone through the wall, then into the next room (the children’s room), and then finally up through the ceiling/roof. There were a number of ways they routed heat in order to heat several rooms … running the chimney through two rooms was one of them.
Another way of sharing heat between rooms is evidenced in the photo below. The solid tree “beams” were installed so that space was left in between them so at least some heat would be shared with a neighboring room.
The kitchen below, with the old wood stove. I bet fresh baked bread from this stove smelled like heaven.
And again, in the photo below, there’s a hole for the chimney to route between two rooms, and the spacing between lateral beams for shared heat too.
Ok, now we visit another building entirely … the doctor’s office which was also his home.
And then we moved on to the local newspaper publisher’s building/office.
Two successful weekly newspapers covered this area in the early 1900’s … two newspapers, that’s how many people lived here! The “Methow Valley News” started in 1903 and the “Methow Valley Journal” started in 1909. The equipment shown in the photos here produced the “Methow Valley News” which is still published today.
I loved the old tractors on display here. I wish they had a roof over them. Notice that some have front wheels that are close together, and some have front wheels far apart … different styles for different uses.
Yet another building here (there are so many, with so much history in them) … another building on the property here show-cased early journeys to this area and the equipment used to make those journeys.
The Weber Wagon Company (photo below), 1845-1904. The Weber Wagon Company, Chicago, Illinois, built wagons called “the King of all farm wagons”. The Dal Hope family in Winthrop donated the wagon in the photo below … their original Weber wagon … to the Shafer Museum. It’s likely the only one of it’s kind in existence.
What would a report of the old west be without saddles. Horses and saddles. Ok, and maybe some spurs jingling down the wooden walkway. But here are a few of the saddles shown in the Shafer Museum.
Take a good look at that woman’s side-saddle above, but also take a look at the horsehair saddle below. I had a horse in my childhood for many years. His hide/hair always seemed so soft to me.
This was a stupendous museum! As mentioned, we saw only a small part of it. If you are ever in the area, this would be a great place to visit. I’ll be back!