The museum is located in the historic Ferlita Bakery building, circa 1896. The original bakery burned down, leaving only the brick oven standing, but was rebuilt larger and with a second oven.
Now this is a bread baking oven. The thing is huge, and there are two side by side
I joined the tour which took us through one of the homes provided to the cigar workers.
A row of cigar-workers’ homes
Very neat structures, that quickly gained my interest. Single story, with an attic, I figured that each one was just under 800 sq ft.
The rooms had 12′ ceilings, which no doubt help in the heat of summer. I was fascinated by what was the smallest boxwood stove I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them. Luckily, it doesn’t get too cold here, and there is the wood cookstove in the kitchen.
With the “parlor” taking up the front of the house, and the kitchen taking up the rear of the house, this hallway connects the two rooms and runs along an outside wall. In between the kitchen and parlor are two bedrooms.
There were many people on the tour who had seen many of the kitchen items used in their youth, I’m willing to bet that I was the only one there who has seen them used in the past year. One thing about living in Interior Alaska, the past is only a door step away. From oil lamps, to wood fired cookstoves, cast iron skillets, granite ware, coffee boilers, the list went on. The ice box was an exception: I’ve never actually seen one of those in use.
