Phillips County Museum News for April 28, 2021

How many remember the old Trafton Door Store?

The following is a story told by Tom Laurence on how Trafton’s first store floated in!

The prairie was covered with buffalo bones when Bob Trafton first arrived. He hired every man he could to gather bones. He was known as the “bone boss”.

He bought a small building up the river where Wagner now stands and hired me to move it down the river for him.

I took it apart in sections, pulling the floor into the river then put the sides on the floating floor, then the roof, lashing them all together.

I took a pole and pushed them out from the shore. It was a time when the river was high. I floated them down and tied them up just above where the railroad bridge is now.

We then hauled it out on the bank and it became Trafton’s first store!

Great memory on the beginning of Malta!

For more stories stop in at the Phillips County Museum Monday-Saturday 10-5.