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New Displays
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Kane School Wagon
The Kane school wagon was a community staple for many years. Owned by Daniel Beal, who lived north of the Shoshone River, the wagon would come, rain or shine, to deliver children to class. Daniel can be seen in the driver's seat in this undated photograph [right], posing with his young son, Bud, and canine friend. Daniel would pick up children along one of the two routs north of the river and bring them to school which sat along the highway at the crossroads of Iona and Kane, and later to the one room school-house in the town of Kane. Last fall the school wagon made it's final journey to rest at our museum. During a family visit, Matt and Tim Beal took note of a photo of Daniel Beal with his wagon, and after learning that the wagon was still around and that the Brad Tippetts family had donated the wagon to the museum, the Beal family took on the relocation project, which was no easy feat. After the school wagon was retired it was stored at the Durfee farm until of the closing of the Kane town site in 1964. It's whereabouts between then when it appeared at Brad Tippett's farm is a little murky. Some grandchildren, great-grand children, and even great-great grandchildren of Daniel Beal assisted in moving the wagon.

Relocating the wagon, September 2020

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Inside the wagon there was a stove to keep children warm, and two narrow benches running along the length of the wagon where they sat. The ironworks on the wagon indicates that it was made by Studebaker, which first began making wagons for the Union Army during the Civil War. The school wagon was likely used until about 1927, when Daniel bought the first gas powered bus can be viewed in the Kane room at the museum. Lovell/Cowley local Pat Steed has agreed to undertaking the restoration project for the wagon and is currently working to make that happen. The wheels of the wagon are being sent to a wheel wright in Livingston for restoration.
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