The Quinn's Awesome Journey: 6/16/2011 Journey Museum

After visiting Chapel in the Hills yesterday we went to the Journey Museum.

I took note of this unusual bird house on our way in.

Now I have to be honest with you, sometimes we make bad choices. After we paid our entrance fee and were in this museum for about 15 minutes Bob looked at me and said, “Snook, it’s a beautiful day outside, one of the few we’ve had, what the hell are we doing in here? We should have saved this for a rainy day.” It was truly a palm meet forehead realization. “Well, we already paid the sixteen bucks, we might as well see it now” was our justification for wasting a great afternoon for being outdoors.

We went to the first exhibit which was titled The Duhamel Exhibit. We stayed in this part of the museum a lot,,,read that as A LOT, longer than we anticipated because the volunteer there wouldn’t let us leave. She was a sweet lady and told us some great stories of years gone by but she went on and on and on. The woman was in tears at one point telling one of her stories. It was too much for me. So we learned a lesson here, do NOT go into a museum exhibit when you are the only ones there. Wait for a crowd to walk in with, and leave when they do. All kidding aside, she was very sweet and interesting. Just long-winded.

So back to the Duhamel’s. If I’m going to tell you about this I guess I had better start at the beginning.

Peter Duhamel, a Canadian by birth, (1838) came to America with an abundance of ambition and $70.00 in his pocket seeking fame and fortune. He worked tirelessly building a cattle empire which turned into a banking empire which became a downtown Rapid City business called the Duhamel/Ackerman Company. It eventually became the Duhamel Company which operated the Duhamel Trading Post.

Peter and his wife, Katrina, had eight children including son, Alex, who ran the Duhamel Company in its early days. Their daughter-in-law Helen, a natural businesswoman, was instrumental in getting the company through the lean years of the Depression. Two more generations would work in the now iconic store but their interests also shifted to radio and television broadcasting.

Duhamels was famous for their saddles. They were made in the basement of the building and they made more than any other saddle maker in western South Dakota. There were approximately 15 different models and each was hand tooled and customized to the buyer.

Duhamel saddles were made from the early 1900’s to the early 1950’s and were touted as the “best on earth”. Many cowboys and ranchers agreed. Records weren’t kept so no one knows how many were made.

In 1985 discount stores (think Walmart’s, K-Mart’s and the like) were cutting into the profits of the Duhamel Trading Post. To compete, the quality of merchandise would have had to be brought down a notch or two or three and this is something that was just not acceptable to this company. They held a sale -- the first since the Depression -- and eventually went out of business.

Their photographed and cataloged collection of 1000 + Indian arts and crafts was donated to the city. The collection was given to the Minnilusa Pioneer Museum for curating purposes. When the Journey Museum was built in 1997 the Minnilusa Pionner Museum was designated as one of the entities within the larger museum and this is how this extensive Indian collection became a part of the Journey.

Not all 1000+ pieces of the collection are on display and I certainly didn’t take photos of everything that is, but here is a sampling of this extensive collection.

The beadwork on this clothing is so intricate and I couldn’t see any beads that looked crooked or out of place.

The top of this child's dress is done in beads. No spaces between them that I could see. I can only imagine how heavy this dress would be for the little girl who would wear it.

The Story of the Broken Rope Panels

The picture you see above is one of a series of paintings made in Duhamels Trading Post by artist Godfrey Broken Rope.

Broken Rope, having overcome an addiction to alcohol, became a self-made minister of the gospel.

He traveled throughout the western states in the 1950’s demonstrating his self taught style of painting using muted tones of house paint on wallboard.

He expressed his philosophy on art, life and spirituality by saying, “I do not speak the white man’s lingo unless you want to buy a picture. But if you want to talk about Jesus Christ I will stop my painting and visit with you.”

These panels were painted directly on the walls of the store and when it closed they were carefully cut from the walls and preserved in the Duhamel Collection.

Duhamel Trading Post staffers, often Duhamel family members themselves, told tourists the story of the Battle of Little Big Horn by referencing the painted panels.

We were finally able to break away from the kind lady who was ~~protecting with her life~~ overseeing the collection.

From the Duhamels we went to dinosaurs.

W don’t really have a fascination with dinosaurs so we just kinda, sorta took it all in as we strolled through this section.

The next exhibit was all about Indians of this land and how they lived.

Again, not a lot of interest from us on this exhibit, its like ,,,see one tee-pee you’ve seen em’ all.

However, this one was a little different. You sat on the benches in front of this one a hologram would appear, in this case an Indian woman, and she tells you about life back in the day.

We were just so anxious to get back outside we rushed through the stuffed animal exhibit, well, not really stuffed animals as one thinks of stuffed animals, think taxidermy. Same with the geology exhibit, rocks and dirt, no interest.

Journey is a nice museum and would have been much more appreciated on a rainy day.

The day isn’t over yet!

We have come to learn that dinosaurs are a huge thing in this area. Bones and fossils are always being dug up around here. It seemed only logical that we would take in the Dinosaur Park next.