Experiencing History
Museum offers hands-on event
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Max McLeod, 6, pumps water at the museum.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
Linda Sappington
Live History Days provides ample opportunities to experience activities, mechanisms, and lifestyles from the past.
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POLSON — Like a scene from a movie, artifacts literally came alive in the back lot of the Miracle of America Museum last weekend.
Visitors rode in military jeeps, mini trains and climbed into the cockpit of Vietnam-era aircraft. Children scrambled over playground equipment from a simpler era, pumped water into a bucket and activated an ear-blasting siren while sitting in an antique fire engine. Hungry folks purchased chilidogs and pop from the soda fountain reminiscent of happier days.
The collection Americana was appreciated by visitors during Live History Days, including Roger and Angela Serzen of Sandy, Utah.
“It’s a throwback from the ‘50s,” Roger Serzen said, calling the event an interactive experience. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s eclectic, different, and you can touch things — they’re not behind glass.”
Young children were thrilled to pet a piglet. “Charlotte” was carted to the event with Tarsha Heuer, a trapper who demonstrated hide tanning.
“She can’t be left in the house,” Heuer explained. When people appeared more interested in the swine than her craft, she quit tanning and stood on the porch of the trapper cabin with her pet until daughter Shailee took the piglet for a walk.
“(Charlotte) likes to walk … but spray her with water and she’ll run away forever,” Shailee said.
Nearby Mark Shae, 12, and his 14-year-old brother Francis took turns firing a 106 millimeter recoilless Vietnam-era rifle.
“Fire in the hole,” Mark would shout after carefully aligning the canon-looking weapon toward an object on the hillside. Out shot a tennis ball and whacked a target hanging inside a 40-gallon drum.
It appeared the younger of the brothers was winning the competition.
A quieter pastime was demonstrated inside the museum as Linda Kittle spun wool into yarn to the delight of young Sheldon McLeod, who left with a snippet of colorful yarn tied to his wrist.
“The kids are always fascinated,” Kittle said, explaining that people once formed yarn by rubbing wool on their leg, but twisting wool into yarn became easier a “few thousand years ago” when the drop spindle was invented, followed by the spinning wheel — a new-fangled contraption created “a few hundred years ago.”
Museum owner Gil Mangels said his interest in collecting things started the day he found an arrowhead on the ground as a child. His bounty keeps growing, as do his welded sculptures, and he’s eager to share the treasure with the public.
The Miracle of America Museum was recently recognized by National Geographic Travel as one of the best places to visit in Montana, according to Mangels’ granddaughter, Becky Dudley of Utah.
“The museum is very important to my grandpa,” said Dudley. The museum, located at 36094 Memory Lane, is open daily and offers free programs once a month on Thursday evenings. For more information, visit miracleofamericamuseum. org or call 406-883-6804.
