Menors General Store

Menors General Store

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Menors General Store is one wing of Bill Menor's original homestead cabin. The cabin was constructed in three distinct phases. Menor built the west wing in 1894 (the Tetons are to the west). Around 1895, he added the central section. The larger east wing was built around 1905. The west wing served as a bedroom and sitting room while the central section housed the kitchen and pantry. Menor opened a store in the east wing where settlers and travelers could purchase tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, flour, canned foods and some items of clothing. The store, ferry and blacksmith shop generated cash to supplement Menor's subsistence farming.

Except for a few items such as glass and nails, pioneers used local materials to construct shelters. Abundant stands of nearby lodgepole pine provided a convenient source of lumber. The rough-sawn boards of the central section indicate the presence of a sawmill in the valley around 1894. Menor painted his cabin with lime-based white-wash that he got from his brother, Holiday Menor who homesteaded across the river. Holiday Menor quarried lime from Blacktail Butte and prepared it in a kiln near the east landing of the ferry.