Museums in Deer Lodge, MT

Thursday, September 3, 2015 - continued

Today is our day to visit several of the museums here in town.

This carriage house sits on the edge of Main Street.  There is even an old carriage inside.

Here is the carriage behind chicken wire.

Next we toured Yesterday's Playthings.  

There was huge Raggedy Ann and Andy collection.  This is only a small part of the collection.

There is a large room of porcelain dolls also.

 I included this picture to show the elaborate doll carriages.
 

Wedding dolls filled this section.  I'm not putting any more doll pictures because there are too many.  There was even a section called Japanese Garden with dolls and lanterns.

This full-sized bassinet was on display with a tiny doll in it.

Then there was 2 rooms of model trains.

The above 2 pictures are most of the model train display.

We also saw this old crank telephone.

Next we went to the store filled with items made by Montana state inmates.

Apparently this store is known nation wide for its horsehair belts, headbands etc.  We had no idea how tedious and therefore how expensive a horsehair belt would be.  The person manning the store said they were about half the price we would find elsewhere for comparable workmanship.  OK, ready? $500.00 to $1000.00 for a beautiful belt.
 

Here are some beautiful horsehair and leather quirts.
There was a room full of various crocheted and knitted items and then lots of beaded jewelry and various items.
   The inmates receive 75% of the sale price.  The inmates are required to buy all their own supplies, so most of the money they receive goes to buying more supplies.

Next we went into the Powell County Museum.  It was filled with many various historic items. 

This display was of some of the more unusual guns.  There were display case after display case of antique hand guns including black power hand guns and rifles.

This is one of two display cases of spurs.

There were many displays of chaps, saddles, saddle bags, work gloves etc.

These  are some of the badges worn by various types of lawmen.

This display said it represented a trapper.  There were several complete outfits but the pictures did not turn out very well.

As we were leaving the museum, the curator told us that everything on display was the life-long collection of, Don Cappa.  It was amazing!  Glad we came to Deer Lodge!