Bitter Root Valley Historical Society

Programs: Brvhs operates and supports the ravalli county museum in the aj gibson courthouse built in 1900. The museum is fully staffed and open to the public year round with rotating exhibits and educational programming that focus on local history, art, and natural history. It maintains archives of documents, photographs, and newspapers dating back to the 1800s for public research. Our extensive collections include ernst peterson, bertie lord, and doug allard's photographic works, artifacts from the salish people and early settlers through the present day. We received grants from the dennis & phyllis washington foundation, and rapp family foundation, to provide two days of free admission and extended hours. The museum serves the entire region with over 10,000 visitors each year.

the museum is an educational venue that provides guided tours for over 600 school-age children each year and programming for visitors of all ages. Annual cultural heritage events attract thousands of regional visitors and celebrate the local mcintosh apple orchard boom of the early 1900s with our apple day and cider festivals, montana's state flower and salish homeland with bitter root day, and ranching lifestyles with cowboy music and poetry. The living cultures of nez perce are the focus of a multi-year exhibit project funded by usda forest service ccs and humanities montana grants.

preservation of our collections and archives is essential to our mission and educational programming. Generous grants from the jane s. Heman foundation and the institute of museum and library services provided the resources to advance our collections initiative to strengthen artifact conservation and recordkeeping. The annie maclay leffingwell foundation grant continues to fund our oral history project and prototype newspaper digitization. Through donations from local tradesman and individuals, we were able to relocate the historic grantsdale school bell and tower to the museum grounds for all to enjoy. By preserving the lifestyles of the past, we able to create exhibits that explore and illuminate the diversity of the bitter root valley.