Curatorial team monthly report for July 2004

In July we continued with much of the same work as June: Cleaning our exhibit areas continues. The Americorps workers and our intern Bob have been shifting back and forth between Marge and Janna. Janna and her crew continued cataloging the objects from in the Methodist Church. Pat continues work on the Long-term Preservation Plan, proofreading and updating our catalog records, working with conservators and other duties. Our volunteers have also continued with, as well as completing data entry and conducting historic research for the Fairweather Parlor exhibit.

The Mills Novelty Company Gypsy Fortune Teller machine was dismantled and—all but the head, which is too fragile to travel—were removed by John Kjelland, wood conservator, to his treatment lab, where the machine will undergo stabilization and conservation treatment. The barrel which John had worked on earlier was returned, and will soon be replaced in the Gilbert Brewery.

Thanks to a generous donation from Tom and Barbie Donnelly of Alder and Chicago, the Curatorial Center has a new look! Blake Nursery of Big Timber was contracted to beautify our rather ragged yard. Blake Nursery used native perennials, trees, and shrubbery in their landscaping, including aspen, potentillas, juniper, monarda, gallardia, everlastings, and grasses. These promise to fill in over the years and make a truly beautiful entry. We at the Curatorial Center also enjoyed the activity of the Blake crew for a couple of weeks, and on their last day here, Amory and Alex Blake were given a behind-the-scenes tour of some of our more unusual and hidden sites. Our thanks to the Donnellys and to Blake Nursery!

In addition to the landscaping crew, a few out of town visitors stopped by. One was a resident of Virginia City when he was a child; he remembered several of the objects now stored here at the Curatorial Center. Mike Ryan, US Forest Service Archaeologist, stopped by and we had the opportunity to spend some time talking about our program. We also had the winners from the Governor's Conference on Tourism in for a tour, and Mike and Jill Verdon of the Brewery Follies stopped in to chat and to offer information they had found about the Gilbert Brewery.

The Most Interesting Object for this month is a tie—or maybe we need to designate another title, such as "most numerous object". This month, the most numerous object by far is the music rolls. These are rolls for player pianos and other automated music machines in our collection. In addition to a hundred or so rolls cataloged earlier in the spring, Janna and her crew have cataloged over 500 rolls this month. We have a few hundred more to go! In the photo below, Americorps worker Sabrena Fry catalogs a box of those rolls.

The Most Interesting Object was voted so by our Intern Bob Baker. It is a metal case for Victrola phonograph needles, dating from about 1930 (pictured below). What makes the case especially interesting is the instructions, which end with step 3: after placing the needle in the phonograph arm and the arm on the record, just "Slide into the groove". Sounds about 30 years ahead of its time!