Looking for wildlife at county museum

Brookings County has a darn good museum in Volga. The five buildings on the shaded lawns of the Volga City Park are worth a visit. You can rush through in an hour without learning anything, or you can stroll through and learn a lot about the history of homesteading, commerce, and farming in Brookings County.

The Museum is an all-volunteer deal; Mary Lou and I are volunteer hosts. We make sure each visitor has the helpful one-page guide with a list of “what to look for” history items.

However, when a recent visitor asked to see something about fish and wildlife, I had to reply, “We’re 99% people history and 1% wildlife history,” but I do have my own, unofficial “what to look for” wildlife list.”

I start by saying that the Museum is in the Doc and Roma Peeke Park (big sign out front, did you see it?). Dr. Alonzo Provost Peeke was a long-time physician in Volga who was an avid outdoorsman. Historians looking for wildlife history can find Doc’s pictures and memories in his biography which is on display in the Museum’s Dr’s office, of course.

Thumb through the chapter titled “You can’t beat a good hunt.” One strict rule …. caring for the game brought home. Roma hunted too, and cooked the game. Find the Doc Peeke’s book displayed under the list of Dr’s fees at the time - $3 for a house call; $50 to fix a skull fracture.” More about Doc when you get to the Vintage Farm Building.

Main Museum Building:
• Look for paintings of landscapes that include wolves, elk, bear, and pheasants. They were done in the early 1900s by Oscar Lee. Lee’s story is interesting. He was a house painter and amateur artist from Volga who also painted murals. See his 10-ft-wide murals at the Brookings County Courthouse. He painted them with paints and brushes he used on the job.

• Look for vintage hunting guns and equipment (bullet molds, brass shotgun shell, reloading press, powder horns, Remington Model 11 20-ga shotgun, 1890s vintage 22 cal rifles). There are also military firearms dating from the Civil War, and more guns in the Sheriff’s office in another building.

Horse-Drawn Museum
• Visitors must see the display that tells the story of Trygve A. Troolien who donated enough money to the Museum for a building to memorialize horse farming. The four full-size horse mannequin get everyone’s attention, but also look for the skunk. It was part of an animal menagerie crafted from barb-wire and concrete by local sculpture Alfred Swensen some 60 years ago. You can’t miss the life-size giraffe on the park lawn. • Find horse-hide blankets, a buffalo robe, a mink coat, a beaver pelt hand warmer, and gloves made from wolf fur. Hunting and trapping furbearers were part of ordinary commerce long ago, and the furs (and horse hides) were welcomed warmth, for example, peek inside the horse-drawn mail delivery wagon.

Vintage Farm Building
• This building is awash with vintage tractors, grain farming equipment, and vintage farm tools of all kinds. In the center is the old Volga Jail – find the gun rack with double barrel, rabbit-ear shotguns (the ears are firing hammers).

• Find the 1926 McCormick Deering 10-20 tractor. On the wall behind the tractor, find Doc Peeke’s duck decoys. Vintage decoy collectors say “every decoy has a story.” These plastic decoys tell of a time when hunters were throwing away hand carved wooden decoys (now valuable collectors’ items) in favor of the lighter mass-produced plastic decoys. The imprint on the decoy bottom says: “Fairfax Featherlite STM-53.” That information that decoy collectors need to place Peeke’s decoys in duck hunting history. They were made in 1953 in Kansas City by Fairfax Plastic Moulders, which was famous for unique bottom-weight stabilizer. The “horse-collar” decoy weights hanging around the decoys’ necks are collectible these days.

Sundet Log Cabin
• Built in 1872 for a family of six. Visitors marvel at the small size of the double bed. Kids always want to climb the steep stairs to see where the kids slept. Find the “basket” on the hearth – it’s made from a large snapping turtle shell.

Rural School
• A one-room school house used until 1965. You’ll find familiar family names on the bulletin board. For out-of-doors information, find the library (it’s just a shelf). Any books on wildlife?

Hauxhurst House
• Moved from Brookings to make way for the Brookings City-County Building. It’s a good contrast between a log-cabin and a urban-Victorian home. Find the original painting of swans.

After finishing your search for wildlife in the other buildings, return to the main building and relax at the research table. You are welcome to use the antique writing device (a typewriter). On display are 100+ white binders that hold a huge amount of indexed history information.

Find Book #45 titled The Lake We Shoot On, and see photos of what life was like in a hunting camp on the shores of Lake Sinai.

Chuck Cecil’s book about Brookings County history titled Fire the Anvils, Beat the Drums has a chapter on hunting, trapping, and fishing in the early days. The settlers shot wild birds for food, such as ducks, geese, brant, prairie chickens, and quail.

They also found an abundance of jackrabbits and occasionally antelope. They reported that all the lakes and streams contained fish of various kinds - pickerel, suckers, bullheads, perch, pike, and buffalo. Walleye were called “pickerel” in earlier times.

The Brookings County Museum is open from 1 – 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday until Labor Day.

Take a virtual tour at https://www.brookingscountymuseum.org/. The online tour is nice, but you’ll have to visit in person to find wildlife.