Exhibits

Curator Myla Dahlke cuts the ribbon opening the Garments of an Era Exhibit. Garments of an Era is our newest exhibit. Showing vintage clothing from a Helena family that dates back to 1880, these garments are amazing. Curated by Helena’s own Myla Dahlke, the exhibit features a 1944 wedding dress made from silk taken from a U.S. Army parachute. On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States. He also embargoed all trade with Japan including silk. The United States imported all of it raw and woven silk from Japan in 1941. The U. S. government also seized all silk existing in the United States, placing thousands of silk textile workers in the New York City Area on the unemployment rolls. During World War II, the Army sold damaged parachutes back into the civilian market; the silk was primarily used to make wedding dresses.

Other garments include a top hat made in New York City in 1880 from a beaver pelt probably harvested in the northern Rocky Mountains. A 1930’s girls P.E. uniform from Helana High School adds to the collection as does a late 1940’s University of Montana letter sweater. Finally, Helena’s baseball history is celebrated with a baseball uniform from a high school/Legion “town team” sponsored by the Marlow Theater!

Communications Exhibit features a large collection curated by East Helena’s John Barrows. Helena was and still is a hub of communications in Montana. This collection features artifacts primarily from Helena’s Telephone Pioneers and John’s personal collection. The exhibit offers telegraph and early telephone artifacts along with a working telegraph key. Kids can send their names by telegraph into the world! This exhibit is the largest of its kind in America’s Rocky Mountain region. The telegraph came to the Montana Territory in 1867. Helena was a major relay hub in the state for Western Union, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Military. What was your first telephone number?

Transportation was critical and very expensive. All western Montana trails led to the Helena area, including several Native American trails and three major wagon routes. Long wagon trains and stage coaches from Fort Benton, Montana and Salt Lake City, Utah in the 1860s and 1870s were the norm on Helena streets. In 1883 the Northern Pacific Railway arrived at Helena and in a short time was completed from Carlton and St Paul, Minnesota to Portland, Oregon. A few years later the Montana Central was completed from Havre, through Helena, to Butte and eventually became the Great Northern Railway. The exhibit includes items pertaining to the railroads and street cars of Helena and other forms of local transportation.

Dennis McCahon’s art is on full display at the History Center and in The Power Block Building downtown Helena. Dennis was a founding member of the LCCHS, a very talented artist of Helena’s historic buildings, and a prolific writer who described interesting historical facts about local geology and weather. His geological information was accompanied by illustrations and includes historic buildings and rock walls, the type of stone and which quarries they came from. His weather information includes a local summary for each month of the year with graph illustrations. Dennis also re-created many of Helena’s buildings in spectacular balsa wood reliefs.

Helena Then and Now features photographs of historic buildings that are gone and the building that replaced them. Helena schools are featured as is the story of Urban Renewal in Helena in the 1970s. Curated by LCCHS founder Harriett Meloy, some 35 years ago, this exhibit tells us why Helena is the way it is today.

The Corridor of History features over 100 photographs of people and places important to the founding and growth of Lewis & Clark County. From Chicago Joe’s Coliseum to John Quiqley’s Frontier Town find your history here!

Early photography in Last Chance Gulch features images and photography equipment used in our area. This exhibit features the history of notable Helena photographers including Edward Reining. Some of Reining’s camera equipment is currently on display.

The Dennis McCahon Gallery currently features five exceptionally rare watercolor paintings by Mary Sawyer including one of Helena’s Old Main Brewery Theater. Mary lived in Helena in the early 1970s. A school teacher originally from Clyde Park, Mary is noted for her watercolors of Helena and of ghost towns across Montana.

Theatrical Stages populated today’s Lewis & Clark County from the beginning of the gold rush in 1864. A new exhibit is under construction which will feature original seats from the Marlow Theater, the Ming Theater (still in existence) and the Auditorium in the Steamboat Block. Programs about the theatrical arts in our communities will be offered as a part of this exhibit.

Eddie Foy Jr. stars with James Cagney in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy. Image compliments of Britannica Kids.The Marlow Theater, Helena’s showplace from 1918-1972, was home to both vaudeville acts and motion pictures. LCCHS is fortunate to be home to 2 seats and stanchions left over after the Marlow fell to Urban Renewal.

The Ming Opera House was a renowned theater built in 1880 by John Ming in downtown Helena. The Masons acquired the building in 1912 and continue to use it today. LCCHS recently received 2 original wood seats from the original Ming Opera House that will be on display.

The interior of the Ming Theater circa 1880. Artist unknown.Little is known today about the auditorium in the Steamboat Block.

Helena remains a center of the performing arts in Montana as Helena’s Civic Center is the largest performing arts theater in the state. We note that national acts from Eddie Foy to Jerry Sienfeld have “trod the boards” in Helena over the decades.