P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r helps them understand that what happened before was real -- real events happening to real people, just like them.” The Tinsley House was built in 1889, the year Montana became a state. It opened to the public in 1989, the year Montana celebrated its centennial. Since then, the two-story, four-bedroom house has been joined by a root cellar, garden, chicken house, granary, barn, blacksmith shop, outhouse, machine shed, apple orchard, wheat field, chickens and the occasional sheep and milk cows. Almost 100 volunteers -- including children, families and very senior senior citizens – now spend their summers demonstrating what life might have been like for Montana homesteaders. “The whole idea behind the Tinsley House is that it’s useable,” Kinsey said. “Artifacts have to be hands-on.” Some volunteers tend the garden, where all the plants are grown from seeds that are at least 100 years old and seem to have stories behind them. “Red Orach,” for one, is the first plant to emerge every spring, Kinsey said. It’s loaded with vitamins and sometimes called “mountain spinach.” The seeds of “Snow On The Mountain” were collected by Lewis and Clark and sent to President Thomas Jefferson to grow at Monticello. By the 1880s, the plant was included in seed catalogs that homesteaders might have received. Other volunteers cook meals on a wood stove, forge tools, plow fields, spin yarn, weave rugs, and make bread, butter and biscuits. Walter Mason, who became a volunteer in 1989 and continued until his recent death at age 96, demonstrated leather working. “He was raised on a ranch in North Dakota, so he knew how to do some of these things that they did on ranches in those days,” said his 93-year-old wife and long-time museum volunteer, Allagene. Other volunteers lead children’s games, conduct tours through the house and identify photos of William and Lucy Tinsley and their eight children. “One of my favorite things about the Tinsley House is hearing parents, grandparents and great-grandparents share stories with their children,” McKamey said. “The cross-generational connection is very sweet to see.” William and Lucy Nave Tinsley moved to Montana to get away from Missouri, a state split by the Civil War, Kinsey said. Even the Tinsley brothers were divided by war, he added. William and Joseph, who originally moved to Virginia City, were probably Confederates. Their younger brother John, a sketchy character who moved to the Helena area, fought for the Union. William and Lucy Tinsley, a dressmaker, married in 1867, Kinsey said. For more than two decades, they lived in an 8-by-16 house near Willow Creek with their growing family. In 1889, they built the larger log house that now sits at the Museum of the Rockies. The fact that the house was made of logs indicates that the Tinsleys were relatively poor compared to those who built brick houses along Willson Avenue in Bozeman, Kinsey said. Hager said the condition of the Tinsley House and a touching story about the children’s involvement were
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