Renata ran across a reference to Montana’s “Boxcar Library.” It existed from 1921 to bring library services in Missoula county to lumber camps – and now continues as a display at Fort Missoula. I’ve found these three photos, plus an article on it at https://buildings.fortmissoulamuseum.org/library-car/ (note the bedframe in the first photo, showing where the checkout counter was combined with sleeping quarters for the ‘Boxcar Librarian.’
The boxcar library was a Missoula county venture – and by 1921, Missoula county no longer included Flathead or Lincoln counties. Unlike the old logging camp cookshack (10 feet wide) and bunkhouse (8 feet wide) that we will be working on (alongside the old Trego Service building) the ‘Boxcar Library’ was a 14-wide. Like the Boxcar Library, the cookshack and bunkhouse have gone through several other uses since their design time when railroad logging took place in the Kootenai valley. (Probably the only reason that buildings from the days of railroad logging survive) The only cooking tool that remains is a spring powered pancake flipper that I grabbed for my own cooking equipment when I left for college sixty years ago. I recall the coffee cups with no handles – probably easier for boxing up when the cook shack moved.
Click the link, and read about the ‘Boxcar Library.’ I only wish I had heard about it while Inez Herrig still lived, and I might have gotten more information from her – the county librarian who brought bookmobiles to Lincoln County.
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