Amid the recreated storefronts within the basement of the Door County Historic Museum – a barber store, a dime retailer, a physician’s workplace – is an exhibit as out-of-place as its contents: The Curiosity Store.
The cupboard is saved as a tribute to the early years of the museum. It’s chock-full of oddities, together with stuffed armadillos, a Canadian coin inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer, mammoth ivory, melted silverware and a picket chain.
“When the museum opened in 1939, the entire place appeared like this,” former museum supervisor Steven Rice mentioned. “It was a portal to different experiences, locations, instances. You’d see stuff you wouldn’t see in your day-to-day life.”
The museum was the brainchild of Harry Dankoler, a retired newspaper man, novice photographer and “passionate collector of just about the whole lot,” Rice mentioned. Initially, the museum showcased many objects from Dankoler’s personal assortment. With the assistance of the Door County Historic Society, he referred to as on distinguished, eccentric associates to fill the museum.
“They have been soliciting and principally despatched out letters to family and friends throughout the nation, saying, ‘We’re opening a museum. Do you’ve gotten something bizarre?’” Rice mentioned.
Now, 85 years later, after many renovations and upgrades, the Curiosity Store stays a touchdown place for objects that don’t slot in particular displays however are too fascinating to cover away.
“Some issues are simply so bizarre,” Rice mentioned, laughing. “We are able to’t actually put them wherever else.”
Highlights embrace:
“Meteorites”
“Meteors are extremely precious and in excessive demand, so we have been questioning if we might finance a museum enlargement with one in all these unhealthy boys – however we couldn’t,” Rice mentioned. “We’ve accomplished some testing and verified that they aren’t, actually, meteorites.”
Rice credit an area craze within the first half of the twentieth century for the dozen-or-so strange rocks that discovered their approach into the museum.
“There was a time earlier than the 1900s when astronomical science was not one thing everybody knew,” he mentioned. “Then individuals began to grow to be conscious of astronomical issues. Any bizarre rock that you just discovered in your farm if you have been digging round was a meteor. For those who couldn’t clarify the place it got here from and had a sure look to it – like, black and rectangular and appeared prefer it may need fallen from the sky – then it was a meteor.”
Putty-Lined Jug
Across the flip of the twentieth century, a development of masking jugs with putty and sticking keepsakes onto them swept by way of the nation. Primarily based on an African-American folk-art custom, the follow was “tailored by white People after the Civil Battle,” Rice mentioned.
Door County native Emma Templeton created a putty jug with bits and items important to her: a button from the Grand Military of the Republic through which her father served, a cuff button from a jail the place her brother was held, her childhood scissors, cash, shells and trinkets, and most random of all, “a gold earring from a Norwegian,” in response to the placard.
“It’s homely and extremely heavy,” mentioned Rice of the jug. “However that’s a part of the allure – it’s a reminiscence train.”
Previous Picket Clock
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbia Exposition, often known as the World’s Honest.
“There was a really robust Door County presence on the honest,” Rice mentioned. “Our Door County fruit was exhibited there and was very talked-about. This was the beginnings of the Door County fruit trade getting nationwide consideration.”
Many Door County residents attended the honest and introduced again these memento clocks.
Pickled Tarantula
In 1922, an worker of the Peterson and Hoslett Retailer in Sturgeon Bay was unpacking fruit when a large tarantula crept from the produce and bit her.
“She needed to go to the hospital,” Rice mentioned. “Extra panic than something. Tarantula bites aren’t that toxic, however painful and terrifying. I’m positive anybody working in produce on the native grocery shops could have had this expertise. A number of species of tropical spiders will often hitch a trip up right here.”
Somebody determined to pickle the offending spider in a meals jar and donate it to the museum.
The follow of receiving donations from the general public hasn’t disappeared since then.
“We soak up donations virtually each day,” mentioned Rice. “Every thing now we have in right here was given to us by the neighborhood for 85 years working. So, we’re a mirrored image of our neighborhood. These are the issues that precise Door County individuals thought have been necessary of their historical past, of their lives.”
