Hats

Visiting: Kalispell, Montana

The Stuck at the Airport adventure crew recently touched down in Kalispell, Montana for a quick visit to Glacier Park International Airport (FCA) and attractions in town.

The bear (above) greets arriving passengers in the airport bag claim area. And is a good reminder to visitors to pick up some bear spray before heading out into the woods.

Thank goodness one of the amenities at FCA airport is a place to rent bear spray.

Mansions, Museums, and Lots of Boots

Near downtown Kalispell, we stopped in for a guided tour of the 26-room Conrad Mansion Museum.

Built for the family of Charles E. Conrad, a Kalispell founding father, in 1895, the three-story home has been completely restored. Better yet, it is filled with an incredible amount of furniture, clothing, china, toys, sports equipment, books, guns, and other items that are original to the house.

In one of the guest rooms, we spotted this early handmade doll of Amelia Earhart with a great handmade toy airplane.

And in the pantry, we were delighted to find jars filled with old food.

In downtown Kalispell, the Hockaday Museum of Art is housed in a repurposed Carnegie Library building from 1904.

In addition to selections from its permanent collection, the museum’s current exhibition features paintings by Flathead Valley artist Nancy Dunlop Cawdrey, who is known for painting on silk.

The exhibition runs through June 17, 2023.

And over at the Northwest Montana History Museum, we learned a great deal about the natural, social, and political history of the region. And we made some new friends.

Of course, we also went shopping. And we were both delighted and overwhelmed to find more than 3000 pairs of boots and more than 1500 hats among the offerings of Western Outdoor.

Hats and headcoverings exhibit at Lambert-St. Louis Airport

LAMBERT TRADITIONAL HEADCOVERS

The Griot Museum of Black History of St. Louis has brought “Crowning Glory” – an exhibit about the evolution and trends of African-American head-coverings – to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL).

The exhibit uses more than 50 hats, head covering and other artifacts to explore four main themes:

Traditional African head coverings; the evolution of the Church Hat; millinery history in St. Louis; and the Levine Hat Company, which opened in St. St Louis in 1903 and which made and sold popular hats for men such as the Knox and the “Zoot Suite” hat.”

Here’s a link to the Levine Hat Company’s guide to Hat Etiquette.

Look for “Crowning Glory” in Lambert’s Meeting Place Gallery in the Terminal 1 Bag Claim through May 2013.

LAMBERT HATS