Thieves break into Custer museum; dozens of items stolen
By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer
The Custer County Sheriff’s Office is asking local antiques dealers
to keep their eyes open for any of dozens of items stolen from a museum in Custer, a 19th
century mining town along the Yankee Fork River east of Stanley.
The museum, contained in Custer’s Empire Saloon and its old
schoolhouse, was burglarized during the night of July 25. Items stolen include gold
scales, a toy wagon, guns and a beaded buckskin Indian bag.
"The thieves knew exactly what they were after," said Custer
County Sheriff Mickey Roskelley. "It wasn’t kids that stole them."
Roskelley said he is optimistic about catching the thieves once they put
the items up for sale. He said he had contacted antiques dealers throughout the country.
"Sooner or later [the items] will appear, and then we can begin
working our way back," Roskelley said. "[The antiques dealers] all know each
other. They’re watching for us."
Roskelley said that since Custer has no electricity, the museum has no
alarm system. He said one will probably be installed now, using solar panels.
Custer was established in 1879 to serve mines in the Yankee Fork drainage.
It included saloons, boarding houses, stables, stores, breweries and cabins. Its
population reached 600 by 1896, but the mines soon played out and by 1910, Custer was a
ghost town.
The townsite was bought by the U.S. government in 1966 and was placed on
the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
Gaetha Pace, a Bellevue resident and director of the Idaho Heritage Trust,
said the Custer museum was the second historical museum she is aware of to be robbed in
Idaho in the past few years. She said the Pioneer Museum, in the town of Franklin,
southeast of Pocatello, now has bars on its windows as the result of a burglary there.
A $3,000 reward has been put up for the arrest and conviction of the thief
or thieves. Anyone with information is asked to call the Custer County Sheriff’s
Office at (208) 879-2232.
