The Phillips County Museum in Malta is one of the nicest county museums we have visited. The Museum’s vast collection includes displays of homesteading and pioneer life, cowboys, geology, dinosaurs, taxidermy and town history.

The museum contains exhibits showing different aspects of rural life. Below is a collection of home furnishings from early pioneer days.

Part of the local mercantile store from the 1920’s was preserved and relocated to the museum.

There were numerous photos documenting the growth of the city of Malta. The aerial photo below was taken in the early 20th century.

Did you know that the first patent for barb wire was issued in 1867? There are currently 2,000 variations of barb wire in use today. The museum had numerous examples.

Phone service is something we all take for granted. Not so in Malta. The county’s first telephone switchboard shown below was part of the Mutual Telephone Company, a co-operative formed by local North Country homesteaders in 1917. The first telephone wires were strung along the barbed wire fences. The switchboard was initially operated out of the Jansey Tieden home with Lydia Tieden (left photo) the first operator. Later the switchboard was moved to the Herman Knuth farm where Mary Knuth (right photo) became the operator. There were four phone lines at this time.

As the county grew so did the number of local switchboard operators. Operators were on duty 24 hours a day to connect calls. In addition to connecting calls, switchboard operators were responsible for sounding the curfew siren at 9:30 PM and reporting fires, using the curfew siren. Switchboard operators also answered questions such as where the local doctor was and which team won the local baseball game. Switchboard operators were finally discontinued in 1965 after direct placement of calls became possible.

Just like their neighbors to the north in Canada, the residents of Phillips County are proud of their dinosaur finds. Below is a smaller cousin of the T-Rex, the Albertosaurus. Even though it was much smaller, he still was a predator and would happily eat you!

Below is “Elvis” a Brachylophosaurus, found in Phillips County. We were not able to get all of Elvis into a single photo.

There were many other fossils on display. These are two well-preserved examples:

We noticed, as in Canada, excellent taxidermy displays of local species.

The item in this next image, donated by the Phillips County Hospital, is something we have never seen before and hope never to have to use.

The following is something truly unique: A rosary made of walnut shells.

The Phillips County Museum is located at 431 US Highway 2 East, Malta, Montana. The museum is open 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Monday – Saturday, April through December. Admission is only $5.

Don’t feel like driving to Malta in your car? You can still visit by train as the Amtrak Train Station is just three blocks away.

Our next stop will be the Great Plains Dinosaur museum located right next door to the Phillips County Museum.