LUSK – Monday, May 16 marked the opening day of “Museum Season” for the Stagecoach Museum in downtown Lusk. The museum has several new displays and items. As always their gift shop is a great place to purchase a memory of the museum or when shopping for any gift for someone special. 

A trove of local and state history awaits those that enter the museum whose displays include “every day life”, a dentist and doctors’ office, several stagecoaches and wagons, a Native American room, and numerous items from local residents. A beautiful doll collection representing many cultures on loan from Tommy Taylor as well as a military uniform display are on the second floor. The back room and outside exhibits show the geological history of the area. Outside buildings in the “town” include the general store, post office and one room school house. The young and young-at-heart can enjoy a classic glass-bottle of coca-cola from the vintage vending machine and a “penny candy” gumball.

One of the new exhibits is a reproduction of a “buffalo box”. Native Americans used the buffalo box to carry the various parts of the buffalo that were used in everyday life. These might include a pliable and soft buffalo hide tanned with brains, untanned hide that became rawhide, ropes made of braided buffalo wool, rattles made of buffalo dew claws, and water containers made of the buffalo bladder. The box might contain the hollow horn of the male buffalo used as a spoon, sinew taken from the back used as thread after it was pulled apart, a rib bone used as an awl, and rib bones to scrape the fur off the hide and to straighten arrows. Or it might contain dew claws, teeth, and porcupine quills used to adorn costumes. The box and its contents were constructed and assembled by Larry Belitz in South Dakota who is an expert at creating replicas of Native American artifacts. The buffalo box was donated to the museum by Terry Sandstrom of Wheatland.

The museum is staffed entirely with volunteers but tries to be open Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.