Custer County Museum Stop # 7 pg # 46

The Custer County Museum in Broken Bow, NE was a wonderful museum to visit for us because we both like history.  

They have exhibit areas set up such as a Mercantile shop filled with the necessities that were needed in the past. They have an ice cream and soda shop that looked so realistic, I wanted an ice cream sundae with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.  Another area held an historical post office exhibit. And also, many more exhibits.  

This is Rosalie.  She is a frequent volunteer, doing a lot of document filing.   She has lived here all her life and can fill in remarkable details of the area.  If you're lucky enough to find her here, she can add a lot more information than you'll see and read about in the museum.  For example, we talked a bit about the Sandhills Open Road Challenge race.

They also have a gallery of historical photos taken by Solomon Butcher.  

He was a settler under the Homestead Act who spent most of his life in Central Nebraska.  In 1886 he began to produce a photographic record of the history of settlement in the region.  There are dozens of his photos providing a very complete picture of early life here.

The museum also houses a Genealogy and research center.  We spent a lot of time with Tammy, the curator of the museum and her mother, Rosalie.  They both explained the history of the museum, the history of the artifacts and the history of Solomon Butcher.  They also told us a lot more about the history of Custer County.  We could have spent days listening to them.  Sometime in the future, we will stop and see this museum again.  It was that good of a museum.  Visit it sometime and see it for yourself.