This community museum is small, but packed with interesting community historical information. It is operated by the Lavernia Historical Association.
We had travelled through Lavernia a few weeks ago and opted to return to this area specifically to check out the museum. It was a closely timed visit as they are only open for general visits one day per month. They have quite a few visitors however, but most arrange a visit with group.
Some interesting highlights: One of the past featured displays was focused on churches in the area and the gist of that display is retained on the west wall. Churches played a big role in the history of the area, and area settled mostly by immigrants of Poland and Germany origin.
Pottery making was a significant industry here in Lavernia in the 1800s and so there is a feature showing the history of the Suttles Pottery and many examples of their pottery. The pot making area of this pottery was within a stones throw of the museum and now the museum shows many artifacts dug from the area of the pottery.
The building that houses the museum is the original volunteer fire barn. It is a tile building with two roll up doors still in place showing how the building was set up for housing the fire fighting equipment. One piece of fire fighting equipment on display is a two-wheeled carriage on which was mounted two very large metal bottles which contained water and soda. These bottes of water became pressurized when acid was released into the solution---in other words a large version of the common household soda acid fire extinguisher. The carriage tongue had four hand holds because it was first hauled to the fire by four men, two per each side of the tongue. One interesting part of this display, brand new to us, were the several buckets used for the "bucket brigade". These buckets had extreme dished bottoms ostensibly to make tossing the water more effective, but also because such a round bottom made the bucket rather unusable for those inclined to borrow the bucket for personal farm use, as there was no way to set it down without spilling the contents.
The museum has other displays on the Chihuahua trail as it wound its way from Chihuahua, Mexico to Indianola, Texas passing through the Lavernia area and its convenient crossing of the Cibolo Creek. It was the route over which silver was transported from the mines in Mexico.
The visit to the museum was made exceptional by the interpretation from Elaine and Graham who were the two volunteers of the day.
Not to be forgotten is the old oak tree on private property north of Lavernia. The story in the museum display of the picture describes it as the Deaf Smith Oak Tree because it was used by Deaf Smith as a lookout post during the military skirmishes with the Mexicans in the middle 1800s. On the way home, we looked for it and the tree still stands, but from a distance, it looks rather ill. It does have a known descendant though as an acorn was planted on the museum grounds and the tree is now 10 feet tall.
At the suggestion of Elaine, we travelled south on the main street about a half mile to the building now used by the Masons. It once was a one room school. Here is a photo of that building.
We had travelled through Lavernia a few weeks ago and opted to return to this area specifically to check out the museum. It was a closely timed visit as they are only open for general visits one day per month. They have quite a few visitors however, but most arrange a visit with group.
Some interesting highlights: One of the past featured displays was focused on churches in the area and the gist of that display is retained on the west wall. Churches played a big role in the history of the area, and area settled mostly by immigrants of Poland and Germany origin.
Pottery making was a significant industry here in Lavernia in the 1800s and so there is a feature showing the history of the Suttles Pottery and many examples of their pottery. The pot making area of this pottery was within a stones throw of the museum and now the museum shows many artifacts dug from the area of the pottery.
The building that houses the museum is the original volunteer fire barn. It is a tile building with two roll up doors still in place showing how the building was set up for housing the fire fighting equipment. One piece of fire fighting equipment on display is a two-wheeled carriage on which was mounted two very large metal bottles which contained water and soda. These bottes of water became pressurized when acid was released into the solution---in other words a large version of the common household soda acid fire extinguisher. The carriage tongue had four hand holds because it was first hauled to the fire by four men, two per each side of the tongue. One interesting part of this display, brand new to us, were the several buckets used for the "bucket brigade". These buckets had extreme dished bottoms ostensibly to make tossing the water more effective, but also because such a round bottom made the bucket rather unusable for those inclined to borrow the bucket for personal farm use, as there was no way to set it down without spilling the contents.
The museum has other displays on the Chihuahua trail as it wound its way from Chihuahua, Mexico to Indianola, Texas passing through the Lavernia area and its convenient crossing of the Cibolo Creek. It was the route over which silver was transported from the mines in Mexico.
The visit to the museum was made exceptional by the interpretation from Elaine and Graham who were the two volunteers of the day.
Not to be forgotten is the old oak tree on private property north of Lavernia. The story in the museum display of the picture describes it as the Deaf Smith Oak Tree because it was used by Deaf Smith as a lookout post during the military skirmishes with the Mexicans in the middle 1800s. On the way home, we looked for it and the tree still stands, but from a distance, it looks rather ill. It does have a known descendant though as an acorn was planted on the museum grounds and the tree is now 10 feet tall.
At the suggestion of Elaine, we travelled south on the main street about a half mile to the building now used by the Masons. It once was a one room school. Here is a photo of that building.
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