Museums 101: Mining Town Services (Photo Diary)

Hell Roarin’ Gulch is the re-creation of a mining town which is a part of the World Museum of Mining in Butte, America (okay, Butte is located in Montana, but calls itself Butte, America rather than Butte, Montana). The re-creation is more than just a bunch of old buildings: it is like either stepping back in time or walking into a movie set. Several of the buildings represent services which were important in the life of an early mining town: banking, printing, photography, the assay office, barber shop, saloon, café, prostitution, lawyer, blacksmith shop, laundry, carpentry shop, and so on.

Bank:

Print Shop:

Photo Studio:

Assayer:

Barber Shop and Bathhouse:

Saloon:

Shown above is a punchboard, a kind of gambling device that was common in saloons. Slips of paper are punched out which indicate the prize. I have a .22 rifle that my father won on a punchboard.

Café:

Blacksmith Shop:

Lawyer’s Office:

Carpenter Shop:

Chinese Laundry:

The Quong Fong Laundry was established in Butte in 1897.

Red Light Services:

Petersons Sauerkraut Factory:  

In 1883, Henry Peterson and Louis Loeffler Peterson established a sauerkraut factory in Gregson, Montana in 1868 and operated it for 50 years. They made over 350 barrels of sauerkraut each year. A barrel of sauerkraut weighed 400 pounds.