Museum celebrates birthdays

POLSON - With 100-year anniversaries fast approaching for both Polson and Glacier National Park, a community institution is getting in on the act.

The Miracle of America Museum in Polson has been around for almost 30 years, and has five acres of stuff to prove it. Ranging from most bygone eras to present day, Gil and Joanne Mangels have done a brilliant job of preserving American history for residents and visitors of the Mission Valley to come and see. Now, the museum will hold a special party tonight to commemorate 100 years of Glacier as a national park.

For the past month, the museum has hosted an exhibit that the Montana Historical Society donated to them temporarily, which Joanne says has helped drive visitors to the museum. Approximately 60 pictures of plants, animals, and an earlier era at the park have helped add new details to the Mangels' collection, which numbers in the hundreds. The party will include tours of the museum, songs, poetry, refreshments and other entertainment.

"We've had an awful lot of interest in it," Joanne said of the celebration. "We've never done anything like this before."

Visitors can experience the old vintage GNP vehicles the museum houses behind the building. Included in the collection is a 1941 Ford 4x4 with a rotary snowplow and a 1952 Tucker Snow Cat.

Inside, pictures and souvenirs cover every wall. The waitress behind the restaurant counter is wearing a uniform from 1920 that was worn by waitresses at hotels in the park from 1915 to 1940. A photo in front of the waitress, part of the traveling exhibit donated by the Montana Historical Society, shows a woman wearing the uniform in the park in the 1930s. The late Doris Huffine donated the uniform displayed in the MOAM, Joanne said.

On permanent display at the MOAM are several pieces from renowned Native American wood carver John L. Clarke. Clarke was from the East Glacier area and was known as "Cutapuis," which means "The man who talks not" in the Blackfeet language. Scarlet fever made Carver permanently mute, but he lived for nearly 90 years and created beautiful woodcarvings. The Mangels' collection includes a large display carved from one piece of wood that shows a man squaring off with a grizzly sow. They also have two smaller pieces, which Joanne said are extremely rare.

To view the traveling exhibit and enjoy the party, visit the Miracle of America Museum Thursday at 6:30 p.m.