Bannock County Historical Museum holds 100-year anniversary celebration - East Idaho News
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Bannock County Historical Museum holds 100-year anniversary celebration

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POCATELLO — The Bannock County Historical Museum is celebrating “a century of saving the past.”

The museum has tributes celebrating a variety of things — from the indigenous people who have roamed this region for centuries to Pocatello’s oldest firefighter, John Farnsworth, who retired in 1976 at the age of 93. The museum has displays featuring a horse carriage, Targee the Cigar Store mascot and equipment from the region’s first doctor’s office.

In honor of its 100 years of operation, the museum hosted a celebration Saturday. The celebration included live music from the Snake River New Horizons Band, Q&A sessions with the museum staff and book readings from Bannock County Historical Society President Arlen Walker. This celebration was tied into the yearly holiday open house.

The museum has a little bit of everything, and a lot of one important thing.

A retired teacher, Walker often told his students if you learn one thing from him, learn to ask, “why?” and then go find the answer.

“That’s what a place like this preserves — we have the answers to a lot of questions,” Walker told EastIdahoNews.com.

Until you find those answers, he added, those questions remain nothing more than a curiosity.

Bannock County Historical Society President Arlen Walker
Arlen Walker stands next to a carriage inside the museum. | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com

As Walker explained, until residents learn how Bannock County came to be what it is today they are just living in any other community. That, he added, is what makes the museum, which the historical society oversees, such an important part of the community.

Lynn Murdoch, the museum’s director and curator, agrees with Walker’s assessment of the importance of the museum.

“We have to preserve our history,” she said. “If you don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t know where you’re going.”

The museum’s large collection is separated into several wings. Visitors can peruse traditional artifacts from native tribes then cruise through a more recent display from Pocatello police and fire departments. After tours through printing presses and a Victorian Parlor, they can then visit a medical office lined with tools and equipment from Dr. James Bean — the region’s first practicing medical professional.

Bannock County Historical Museum, Dentistry
A dentist chair inside the medical wing of the museum. | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com

According to Murdoch, there is always something new to discover when touring the museum — even for her, one of the museum’s two employees.

“Every day. Every day. There’s always something that I didn’t pay attention to, or that we have in the collections that I haven’t really looked at yet.”

She joked, among the artifacts on display is an electric hat invented to cure baldness. “It didn’t work,” she laughed.

A nearly complete collection of yearbooks from Pocatello High School is also among the displayed memorabilia, as are photos of the fire that destroyed the original school in 1914.

The Bannock County Historical Museum opened on March 8, 1922. Then, it was a display inside the Carnegie Library — now the Marshall Public Library. It has since moved into its current digs, at 3000 Avenue of the Chiefs, with its operational cost included in the county’s annual budget.

It is open year-round, though hours differ from month to month.

Currently running on its winter hours, the museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hours of operation increase during the summer months, Murdoch said.

Bannock County Historical Museum, printing press
A printing press, pre-internet. | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com

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