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40 Years of Preserving History

The Conrad Mansion Museum to celebrate its 40th anniversary with a June 18 party at Buffalo Hill

By Molly Priddy
Conrad Mansion. Beacon File Photo

Sitting in the middle of Kalispell, the Conrad Mansion Museum is a fulcrum around which the history and growth of the Flathead Valley unspools.

The 13,000-square-foot mansion served as the home for Charles E. Conrad, considered the founding father of Kalispell, and his family, where they celebrated many milestones and welcomed many guests.

Though the home was completed in 1895, it would take another 80 years before the mansion became a museum, open to an eager public waiting to catch a glimpse into the past of this iconic family and building.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the museum’s creation, and, as is a Conrad family tradition, will be celebrated with a big party.

“We have got a feast, a celebration, for all the friends of the mansion,” Sue Corrigan, president of the museum’s board of directors, said. “It was a huge achievement to get this set aside as a museum.”

The Conrad Mansion Museum’s 40th Anniversary Fête will take place on June 18 at the Buffalo Hill Golf Course Club House. Both the date and the place are significant, Corrigan said.

First, holding it in the middle of June splits the difference between Charles and Alicia Conrad’s birthdays, she said. Secondly, before it was a golf course, Buffalo Hill was where Conrad kept a large herd of bison, whose bloodline would later help establish the National Bison Range in Moiese.

The fête will also be the culmination of a raffle being held to raise money for the museum, with prizes including a three-day African safari and a large gun safe.

Corrigan said the party would include a menu created by the chef at Buffalo Hill, a champagne toast, a birthday cake, mansion trivia, a visit from a tour guide dressed and acting as Mrs. Conrad, and other “special guests.”

It also marks the beginning of a new history project at the mansion, Corrigan said. Between now and the museum’s 50th anniversary, the staff hopes to collect stories about the mansion. Tour guides often hear about how a parent or a grandparent worked at the mansion or delivered milk or groceries, Corrigan said, and those are the tales the museum would like to record before they disappear.

“Everyone has their story,” Gennifer Sauter, executive director of the mansion, said. “When I was a kid, we would go on tours and peek out the second floor windows.”

Tickets for the 40th anniversary party are $100 per person, and only 100 will be sold. Raffle tickets are $10 each or six for $50, and only 250 will be sold.

Turning the mansion into a museum saved much of its history, Sauter said. By the 1970s, the massive home had fallen into disrepair, with boarded windows, overgrown trees, and evidence of vandals.

Alicia Conrad Campbell and her grandson, Vick, offered the mansion to the city to be restored and preserved, launching a major city debate that eventually ended in December of 1974, when Kalispell accepted the mansion as a gift.

That first year was dedicated to cleaning up the facility, and the first tours offered in 1975 were of the first floor only. The University of Montana helped provide historic furniture as well.

From 1976 to 1986, rehabilitation continued, and the tours moved to the second floor. The next decade was dedicated to opening up the third floor, as well as the maintenance projects keeping the house together.

By 2013, the museum, which now attracts 9,000 people annually, was able to give back the furniture to the university, Sauter said, because many of the original pieces were brought up from the basement and put back in place and others that were taken from the home were returned.

“Things, over the years, have come back to us,” Sauter said.

As it sits now, the home is 95 percent original furnishings, a considerable task accomplished with the rest of the restoration in the last 40 years. Future projects include moving the museum staff from the home and reverting their office space back to its original function as grandmothers’ quarters.

“There is a laundry list of repairs that are constantly underway,” Sauter said.

Though the mansion was given to the city as a park, the museum is self-funded. Fundraisers throughout the year keep the lights on, as do museum memberships. This year’s memberships are only $40 through July to celebrate the museum’s milestone.

Celebrating a city’s founding history is important, but the museum’s 40th also marks four decades of citizens working together to preserve their past through labors of love.

Margot Jaumotte, who has worked at the museum since 1996, said the mansion is a familiar, warm, friendly place for her.

“When I walk in, I feel like I’m home,” Jaumotte said.

For more information on the Conrad Mansion Museum, visit www.conradmansion.com.