An abundance of fine pelts drew the first white men into this valley, long held sacred by the Indians. The trappers’ day soon passed, and was succeeded by others, equally brief. Tie cutters, cattle barons, and hunting expeditions came and went. Thomas Edison accompanied one of these expeditions, and at Battle Lake he conceived the idea for the incandescent light. Homesteaders and ranchers, the first permanent residents, began to arrive in the 1870s.

The year of 1897 produced an electrifying change. A rich copper strike in the Sierra Madres precipitated the new city of Grand Encampment and several satellite settlements. A 16-mile aerial tramway—the longest in the world—supplied the smelter. Power was provided by water through a 4’ wooden pipeline. The S & E Railroad was constructed, but its completion came a little late.

In 1908, the company, which had produced two million dollars in copper ore, was indicted for over-capitalization and fraudulent stock sales. The mines closed, and Rudefeha, Dillon, Copperton, Rambler, Battle and Elwood became ghost towns. Encampment and Riverside survived but the “Grand” was quietly dropped.

The museum captures some of this history through its collection. On the complex is the “Doc” Culleton Building. Inside you’ll see a variety of displays including a folding oak bathtub and a square grand piano. Also at the complex is the George Kuntzman Building, the Wolfard School House, a U.S. Forest Service guard station, a Tiehack cabin, and the Lake Creek Stage Station.

One of the more unusual exhibits is the two-story outhouse. Though most dwellings in the mining communities in the hills above Encampment in the early days were settled on solid earth, many of the nearby Chic-Sale structures were designed in higher fashion, to overcome the problem of deep, drifting snows. Some of these outhouses were erected high atop a base of cribbed up logs; others were slender, silo-like creations with doors opening high up on their fronts; a few were even impressive with newly shingled exteriors. Most were approached by wooden steps leading up five or six feet to railed platforms in front of the doors; others were reached by railed ramps from building to outhouse. A two-story outhouse is part of the display at the Grand Encampment Museum complex.

The museum is open daily from Memorial Day weekend through September and on weekends through October. Call for hours. Admission is free. Brochures for a local walking tour can also be obtained here.

Excerpted from museum brochure.