In the early 1900s Clay City in Powell County was a busy community along the Red River.
The small town of about a thousand people had a reputation for hard work in the thriving timber, iron, and railroad industries. The Clay City National Bank on Main Street was located in the heart of town.
The two-story, red brick building opened for business in 1890. Pictures from the early 1900s show bank clerks working in front of a large, walk-in safe.
But by the 1940s business was declining as the railroad left town and jobs dried up in the timber industry. In 1944 the Clay City National Bank closed.
Today the former bank building is very much alive and open with a new purpose. In 1966 it became the home of the Red River Museum. During the early years of the museum, the second floor began to fill with donated items that represented life in Clay City during the 1800s and early to mid-1900s.
Farming tools, historical pictures, medical supplies, an old bicycle, a phonograph, and a telephone are some of the featured items. Through the decades more and more donated items filled the first floor too. The Red River Museum also grew outside the former bank building.
The train depot from nearby Slade was moved and reconstructed next door. Its walls are lined with old pictures showing life from a hundred years ago.
The area's last log, one-room schoolhouse was taken apart and rebuilt next to the bank building.
Museum volunteer Doug Rogers says the one-room schoolhouse is full of Clay City history. “We have a lot of stuff to do with the blacksmithing, all the tongs and the bellows and grist mills on this side, and probably the largest collection of molding planes I've ever seen in my life, hundreds of molding planes, woodworking tools.”
Next to the schoolhouse is a reconstructed, original one-room log cabin also full of history. Rogers says, “We have a wheel right shop in here, which is an old industry back in the old days that they used to repair buggy wheels and there was some blacksmith part of that too.” There’s also an old workshed full of farming tools.
All of this, Rogers says, represents a hard-working community that thrived a century ago. “Speaks to me of hard times and perseverance through a lot of tough times in this area, the different industries that come in here, and work that the people have done in this area to build it up to what it is today. You can go upstairs or outside in the building and see any kind of tool you want to do with woodwork and wheelwright and iron industry. All of that is right here, the timber industry, over in the depot there, we have all kinds of pictures, wonderful pictures. What it was like in early 18th century, 19th century around this area.”
To preserve a record of every item on display, museum worker Verna Rogers, Doug’s wife, is using a computer program called “Past Perfect Museum Software.” Verna enters each item into the computer by where it’s located in the museum, a description, and who donated it.
She says, “We are preserving the past. Every object in here has a story. We do know the stories for a lot of the objects, and we can, you know, we're very willing to tell you about it. Whenever I talk to visitors, I try to give the history of the object. I try to make it interesting. I try to give them a background. We are at 5,778 items that we have entered, and we are still not finished.”
For example, on one museum wall, they have the local newspaper’s front page from when President Lincoln was assassinated. Upstairs there’s a display of the equipment used to make baseballs in the Depression of the 1930’s.
Doug Rogers explained, “They needed a little extra money to live on. So, a local guy in the area got a contract with the big leagues to sow baseballs. They made all these jigs and stuff to hold these baseballs. And they'd sit around, and the league would send them these materials to build these baseballs. And that's what they were doing, making baseballs.”
The museum also has a sandstone petroglyph from a rock shelter in Southeastern Powell County called High Rocks. The rock carvings on the petroglyph are believed to be from early Native Americans. All of this and more is open to the public on weekends and by special appointment.
On May 9-10th the Red River Museum is holding its annual “Homecoming & Old Engine Show” which features blacksmiths, pottery, quilting, wood carving, weaving, and oral history.
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