Pioneers had to have one glass window, like this one in MDHC's original homestead shack, under the requirements of the 1862 Homestead Act.

Homesteader Shack

When the MonDak Heritage Center was built in 1983, the Donald Baue homestead shack was moved from Sioux Pass and placed in the Center's lower level prior to completion of the main level above. The shack, built in 1907,  is all original with a few exceptions...wooden flooring, new tar paper and interior paper....but even those items were put on as they would have been in 1907. The homestead's dimensions are 12 feet by 14 feet the minimum allowed and the size which more than 90 percent built to "prove up their claim." Under the original Homestead Act passed in 1862, any person 21 or older who was head of a family and a citizen could obtain title to 160 acres of public land if he/she lived on the land for five years and made improvements to it in that time.  The big influx of homesteaders to the MonDak area was from 1906 to 1910, with over 3,000 homesteads filed in Richland County, Montana.

The altar in our church display, painted to look like marble, originally came from the Lambert Catholic Church.

Church

The MonDak Heritage Center church display incorporates items from many of the area churches established by early MonDak settlers of diverse nationalities and faiths. For example, the communion wine set on the altar is from Lonsdale Methodist Church, but the altar itself is from St. Teresa Church, the old Lambert Catholic church. Contrary to its appearance the altar is not marble, but wood painted to look like marble, a relatively common practice then, but such altars are quite rare today. The first churches in the MonDak were established by the Methodists in 1893, followed by the Lutherans in 1908, the Congregationalists also in 1908 and the Catholics in 1915.

School bell from Three Buttes School, a one-room country schoolhouse that survived into the 1980s.

Schoolhouse

Like the church exhibit, the furnishings for the school exhibit came from a variety of area rural schools, most no longer operating. One-room schools like the one recreated in the MonDak Heritage Center's pioneer town were common in the MonDak area in the early years and beyond, with several rural schools in Richland and surrounding counties surviving well into the 1960s. The first rural school in the MonDak area was established in 1883 in the Newlon community. Sidney's first school was established a year later in 1884.

The Heritage Center's Lilllian Anderson Jensen Memorial Library is home to a large collection of area high school annuals.

The museum's townhouse kitchen dates from the 1930s reflecting the arrival of natural gas to the MonDak .

Townhouse

The townhouse in our exhibit is meant to contrast with the homesteader shacks of the same period. the furnishings and cluttered decorating style are all reminiscent of the early 1900s, with the exception of the kitchen which has been updated slightly to the 1930s when natural gas was piped into the Lower Yellowstone Valley. At the same time electric refrigeration became readily available, making the housewife's work much easier. But while the kitchen is slightly updated, the rest of the house is typical of the early 1900s, with its rooms filled to the brim with furniture, looking cluttered and overcrowded in the style of the day.

An October issue of "Successful Farming" awaits delivery at the recreated Sidney, MT Post Office.

Post Office

In the days of the homesteaders, the post office was often the only link with the outside world and loved ones back home. The first post office in the MonDak area was established in 1883 at Ridgelawn, the first town in sprawling Dawson County, which originally made up nearly one third of the state of Montana. The present county system, and thus Richland County, was set up in 1914. Typically early post offices were set up in local stores or other businesses, or even in local homes. Like the other displays, our post office includes a number of items from a variety of sources, most notably the box units from the old Dore, North Dakota, post office first established in 1901.

An old safe outside the pioneer town's bank display was donated by F.T. Reynolds grocery store.

Bank

It is appropriate that the bank in the MonDak Heritage Center's pioneer town sits on the corner of the streets since this was the place of honor accorded banks in most frontier settlements.  In fact when the then "new" Richland Bank (now Stockman) was being built in Sidney, Montana, the former building (located on the corner) was moved out into the street so that its replacement could also be built on what is now the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue. The first banks established in Sidney (forerunners of two of the town's current banking institutions) opened their doors in 1906 and 1909. Our display includes old safes, receipts, bookkeeping ledgers, checkbooks, files boxes, coin dispensers and even some old school warrant books.

This ether drip mask on display in the museum's hospital exhibit was placed over a patient's face and the ether slowly dripped onto it. The process made many patients uncomfortable, feeling as if they were smothering.

Hospital

The first hospital in Sidney, Montana was started in May 1907 in the home of Annette Meadors. By 1909, three doctors were practicing in town and in 1911, a second hospital opened in another home offering about half a dozen patient beds. In 1919 a 30-bed hospital was built and then sold to the Methodist Episcopal Church which operated it until 1946 before donating it to the residents of Richland County. At that time, the hospital was reorganized as a non-profit, non-sectarian community institution. Items on display in the museum's hospital exhibit were used by early local doctors and the hospital, including a saw for small bone amputations, alcohol lamps used to heat up and dissolve narcotics pills, ether masks, and a tonsil retractor whose corkscrew like end would be twisted into the tonsil to help lift it out.

The local mercantile was a favorite gathering spot for both groceries and gossip. Nearly every small town in the MonDak had at least one mercantile in the early 1900s.

Mercantile

The general store was the main gathering place in the early days of the MonDak and often housed the local post office. The store can be likened to a miniature shopping center with everything packed into one room...and we mean everything. Customers could purchase groceries, fabrics, kerosene, nails, overalls, underwear, pails, brooms, and have harnesses repaired. They in turn could trade a case of fresh eggs or a can of cream for essential commodities, plus the latest news and gossip. Nearly every small community in the MonDak had their mercantile, with merchandise typically arriving by rail or steamboat. As roads and general transportation improved, however, many of the businesses came to be concentrated in the larger towns like Sidney.

The mechanics of their day, leatherworkers in the early 1900s mended both boots and horse gear in their shops.

Harness Shop

The harness shop played an important role in pioneer days, with its workers likened to the mechanics of today. Look for the leather flynets on the right wall in this display. When thrown over the horses, the leather strings of the flynets would swing and chase the flies off when the horse moved. However, leather flynets were too expensive for most homesteaders, who then improvised with gunny sacks, olds sheets or ordinary string or twine. The harness shop business began to die out in the 1930s when tractors came into common usage in the MonDak area.

The 250 year-old shawl on display in the Dress Shop.

Dress Shop

Before the days of ready-made clothes, many women sewed not only to clothe their own families but to augment the family income. The dresses, hats and other accessories they made were sold in dress and millinery shops like the one found in our pioneer town. Dressmaking was a respectable profession for women in the early 1900s and several Sidney women were outstanding seamstresses. The Heritage Center's vintage clothing collection is rotated periodically within the display. Hats were an essential part of high fashion in those early years and the Heritage Center is able to showcase its extensive collection in the dress shop. Among the more unusual items featured is a black lace shawl that is over 250 years old.

The Richland County (Montana) Sheriff's Department donated the old jail door in the exhibit.

Sheriff's Office

Richland County, Montana's first sheriff, George M. Arkle, was elected in 1914, when the county was first established. A year later, prohibition was established in Sidney, five years before the law went into effect nationally. Law enforcement officials were kept busy enforcing the law. Liquor was transported along back roads and trails from Canada, and the county had a number of operating stills of its own, which were confiscated and destroyed along with the homemade brew.  Side note: An old still can be seen at the museum located next to the homesteader shack. The museum's sheriff's office exhibit is fairly typical of the era, sporting firearms, a potbellied stove for heat and coffee, wanted posters on the wall and a single cell for holding prisoners.

Some of the dental supplies and equipment on display in the MonDak's "dentist office."

Dentist's Office

The museum's dentist office was donated by John Beagle, son of Sidney dentist Dr. Gordon Beagle who established his practice in the 1940s. However, the dental cabinet and tools on display belonged to pioneer dentists Dr. George MacGruder who established his practice in 1909. MacGruder and his brother-in-law Dr. Homer McVay homesteaded in the Spring Lake community. The MacGruder and McVay's graduation picture from dental school hangs over the dental cabinet.

The rescued refrigeration unit in the ice cream parlor is stocked with soda supplies.

Ice Cream Shop / Soda Fountain

Ice cream parlors were popular summertime establishments for rural folks in the early days. Turner Drug in Sidney opened their new store in 1913 incorporating an ice cream parlor with wire-framed "ice cream chairs" and tables, along with great banana splits and nickel ice cream cones. Sidney Drug opened in 1919 and included a parlor as well. Cones and cokes were a nickel and sundaes, 15 cents. A favorite drink was cherry phosphate and workers had to get up at 5 a.m. to get the syrups and ice cream ready for the day ahead. There were several other ice cream parlors in Sidney over the years and in other local towns, including Fairview and Savage, Montana. On a side note: The museum's parlor display displaced an earlier saloon scene, when the refrigeration unit used in the display was rescued from a dump ground.

This yawning child illustration was commonly used in Fisk tire signs to illustrate its "Time to retire" slogan.

Service Station

The Litening gas pump in front of the Heritage Center's service station exhibit is sporting a new coat of paint, but otherwise is still in its original state. The early model was pumped full with arm power, after which the gas was delivered by gravity into the car's tank. Among the tools on the workbench is a wooden box holding one of the first socket sets ever made. The spouts seen next to the old cash register were capable of fitting any mason jar, an important feature since automobile oil at that time came in bulk. The Fisk tire sign on the wall includes a picture of a child yawning and ready for a nap to illustrate the tire company's theme: "Time to retire." While it's hard to believe now, Sidney's gas stations had several "gas wars" over the years with prices below 20 cents per gallon at their height.

A horseshoe appears to be cooling on an anvil in the MonDak Heritage Center's blacksmith exhibit.

Blacksmith

In the pioneer era, the businesses to be started in a new area were the hotel, saloon, trading post and the blacksmith. Horses needed shoes and wagons needed wheels. It was hot and dangerous work. One Fairview (Montana) blacksmith hung a sign outside his shop reading "There isn't a horse too wild for me to shoe" to advertise his skills. The blacksmith would use a forge heated with hard coal. He would heat a piece of iron in the hot fire, place it on the anvil and pound it into the desired shape: horseshoes, railroad rails, miner's picks, bars and shovels, farmer's plowshares, cattlemen's branding irons and wagon parts. The shaped iron would then be plunged into a bucket of water to be cooled or be reheated and rehammered. Like the leatherworker, the blacksmith shop lost much of its importance with the arrival of the automobile to replace the horse and buggy.

The trains are running on time in this authentic recreation of an early train depot.

Railroad Depot

The railroad arrived at Sidney, Montana on June 5, 1912 when the Great Northern Pacific Railway ran the first train from its main line in Glendive, Montana 50 miles away. The Great Northern arrived a year later and the two companies set up a "joint station" with both railroad companies using the same Northern Pacific depot. Historically, no other industry contributed as much to the settling and development of the Western United States. Every community along the rail line had a depot and every depot handled freight, baggage, passengers, Railway Express, Western Union and the U.S. mail. In addition to handling almost all shipments of grain, livestock, sugar beets, sugar, pulp, molasses and coal, the railroads through the Railway Express was also the best fast transportation of its day, bringing in baby chicks and other animals, cream and other perishable food stuffs and just about anything needing fast delivery. The museum's depot exhibit is made up of authentic articles and furnishings from area depots, with the interior faithfully set up by three local retired railroad agents.