Miracle of America hosts "Live History Days"

Story and Photos by TRIP BURNS

Lake County Leader

If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending Gil Mangel’s Miracle of America Museum, you’re missing out.

The museum host visitors from all over the world every year, and has been operating for over 35 years.

Gil and his wife Joanne, opened the museum in 1981 and by 2014, it had attracted 14,000 visitors from all 50 states and all 11 Canadian provinces and dozens of foreign countries.

When a visitor walks in, there’s a board behind the counter, which Gil dutifully attends, that marks each state visitors during the year. By mid-June of this year, the museum had achieved attendance from all 50 states and foreign countries as far away as Brazil.

The museum is filled with Americana artifacts from the various wars, military vehicles, posters and documents, and sensitive displays of the U.S. history. At one point, visitors can view a board that illustrates the dangers of drunk driving. The pictures are of people, young and old, who have lost their lives locally in the Polson area due to drunk driving. It’s something Mangels cares deeply about. In fact, as a part-time welder, Mangels crafts white iron crosses to be displayed on roadsides where a death by drunk driving has occurred. This is just one of many type displays that fill the rich historical value of the Miracle of American Museum.

The museum held its annual Live History Days over the weekend, attracting many visitors for fresh ice cream, a ride in an antique tank, and train rides around the grounds of the property.

Among the special attractions, many craftspeople came to demonstrate old practices in making things and educating on the old ways of doing things.

Helen Holt, for example, set up near the outdoor general store to spin sheep’s wool into yarn. She is part of a local group that meets in Ronan every third Thursday to meet, talk, and spin yarn into sweaters and blankets.

“We’re showing people how it’s done,” Holt said. “We’re trying to get more people interested.”

Holt makes blankets and sweaters, which take a variety of time, depending on the type of yarn and wool used in the product.

“It depends on how long you get at it,” she said. The finest knitted sweaters take a long time, and require patient skill. At the event on Saturday, she was making a sweater to give to her niece this upcoming Christmas. People were gathered around her to listen to her talk about knitting.

She shared an interesting story about the knitters in Ireland and Scotland. “Each woman had her own pattern,” she said. That way, when the husbands, who were fishermen, were lost at sea and later found they could identify the person based on the pattern of the sweater. The tradition, it’s safe to say, goes back a long way.  

Another craftsman, and new to the museum’s event this year, was Don Safford. Safford was demonstrating the art of knapping, which is chiseling obsidian into arrowheads.

Safford used to be located in Texas, but when he was hunting for arrowheads, there were intrusions in the form of snakes. Rattlesnakes were too prevalent and made it too dangerous for Safford.

Rattlesnakes are so bad down there,” he said. “They’re professional biters, and I’m scared of those things.” So these days, he practices the “art of the ancient” up in Montana, where there are very little encounters with snakes. He makes arrowheads, dart points, and stonage knives.

The first five years he didn’t make much progress, and then he joined the Puget Sound Knappers – a group of 40 or 50 across the western U.S. He went to meetings and learned the ways of the knapper.

Gil Mangels walked the grounds of his museum and took stock in the group of people riding rides, getting ice cream, and enjoying themselves.

“We’ve been doing this for 27 years,” he said. “It’s a good way to get people to learn about history.” As he walked toward the buildings – there are over 40 in all – he said to visitors gathered near, “All right! If you want to ride in the tank, follow me.”