Saddle up to the saloon, pop a sarsaparilla, and step back in time, to the days of miners, ranchers and Serrano Indians.

    An entire world of yesteryear comes to life at the Big Bear Museum, which opens for the season Memorial Day weekend, and there’s a slew of new exhibits that help tell the story. A hundred years ago, for instance, the barber did more than just trim hair; he also was often the local doctor and dentist, as century-old artifacts now on display at the museum depict, highlighted by a 1920’s barbershop chair donated by Richard Woolf.

    Completing the display is a pedestal sink that might even date back to the original Peter Pan Club, plus accessories like turn-of-the-century surgical kits and bandages, hundred-year-old doctor bags, ancient blood pressure kits, even druggist tins and pill bottles—many with the original contents still inside!

    “The barber and medical professions were all rolled into one,” said curator Kim Sweet. “In fact the barber pole stands for blood and bandages and originally was just red and white, like a candy cane. The blue stripe was added sometime after World War I. You’d go to the same guy to have him pull a tooth, cut your hair, and take out a kidney.”

    Many of the items are recent donations from the estate of the late, legendary Bob Brown, the man who dressed Hollywood in intricately-designed leather. There’s a shaving kit, scalpels and a self-help medical book that came from miner Williard Server from around 1916, four inches or more thick and covering do-it-yourself treatments for fever, diarrhea, delivering a baby, meningitis and more.

    Truly the ways of the west as it really was unfold at the museum, which is open Saturdays, Sundays, holiday Mondays and Wednesdays till it closes for the season in October. A new arrival is the original Kalamazoo stove dating back to the 1880’s, used in the famous damkeeper’s house by Bill Knickerbocker, Big Bear’s real-life Paul Bunyan.

    The wood-burning stove was ingenious for its day, nickel-covered and sporting a crude thermometer in front. With six burners, side griddle and bun warmer, it’s impossible to estimate how much the ancient artifact weighs, but “we were afraid it would fall through the floor,” Sweet said without an exaggeration. Especially since it’s housed in the hundred-year-old Shay Cabin and Saloon, one of Big Bear’s oldest buildings, where there’s Bob Brown memorabilia including bar and stools that came from his estate.

    Also don’t miss the old-time flour table, where valuable flour and sugar was stored. Of particular interest, notice the “ant traps” on the table’s feet, which were filled with water so pests couldn’t get to the valuable commodities stored inside.

    From a real chuckwagon to Serrano Indian village with teepee, the wild west is on display at the Big Bear Museum, fitting since so much of what happened on the plains took place in Big Bear too.

    Mining played a huge part in Big Bear history—indeed long before there was a lake for boaters to flock to, there were mines in operation through both Big Bear Valley and adjoining Holcomb Valley—and museum displays do it justice. The centerpiece is the massive five-stamp mill so representative of many Big Bear operations, as the mighty stamps pounded down onto rock and obliterated ore, revealing (hopefully) the gold inside.

    “We have three of the stamps running now, and the remaining two will run this summer,” Sweet said. “It’s the only working stamp mill in Southern California. People are just in awe when we have it running.”

    A miniature hand-crank design which guests can turn demonstrates how the real one worked. At one time there were as many as 18 stamp mills operating in Big Bear, highlighted by the 40-stamp machine at the famous Gold Mountain Mine, where Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, developer of Baldwin Park spent a fortune while trying to find one.

    When miners weren’t working stamp mills, they tried their luck at gold panning, another skill that comes to life at the museum. On weekends Jim Lanners demonstrates the fine art of swirling water in a pan, splashing out water and foreign material till only the gold is left behind. It’s a great hands-on activity that youngsters love, especially when they find bits of “gold” (actually pyrite or “fool’s gold”) at the bottom of their pans they get to keep.

    Outside guests can also explore the working blacksmith shop, including three new anvils (one weighs a whopping 623 lbs.!), forges from the original Rose Mine, and much more. Blacksmiths Don Schaul and Lanners show how metal was turned into useful pieces ranging from nails and horseshoes to tools. There’s also authentic railroad carts from the Gold Mountain and Rose mines too.

    Memorial Day weekend also features a couple of important museum events. First is the Appraisal Fair on Saturday, May 26 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Qualified appraisers will be one hand to help set value for insurance or other purposes of antique clocks, china, even Native American artifacts. Cost is $5 per item, limit three items per person.

    Then on Monday, May 28, celebrate the holiday with “Anna Crane Day—A Time for Remembrance,” which is the 101st anniversary of the first “Decoration” (now Memorial Day) observance in Big Bear. Held by school marm Anna Crane in 1906 in the old mining town Doble, which housed the men working the Gold Mountain Mine in the hills above, Decoration Day was established in the 1860’s as a time to decorate the graves of Civil War veterans, and was later expanded to include honoring the dead of all United States wars.

    Meet at 7:30 a.m. at the museum to caravan out to the old Doble town cemetery. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. each day it’s open, and with just a small donation for admission.

    The museum is at Bear City Park off the boulevard at Greenspot in Big Bear City. Call (909) 585-8100.