History museum director turns the page on a new chapter

For Margaret Davis, stepping into the role of executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum is a chance to not only help preserve the area’s history, but also to make history.

With the help of a small staff and a cadre of dedicated volunteers, Davis is eager to build partnerships and for the museum to continue serving the community in the years to come.

Davis’ journey to becoming director of Kalispell’s oldest public building started while growing up in Helena. She credits her parents for sparking her lifelong interest in history and museums.

“My dad and his parents were native Montanans. He loved Montana,” she said. “My parents were huge history buffs so we did a lot of traveling all around Montana and museums were always part of the equation.”

Her parents were also big do-it-yourselfers.

“My parents bought a Victorian fixer-upper in Helena,” she said. “About a third of every home movie is of us kids hauling up buckets of plaster.”

Davis says growing up in that kind of environment gave her the confidence she could learn how to do things herself. Later in life she would take on six major home renovations, along with new construction projects.

Working with her hands has always been one of Davis’ great pleasures. She studied traditional letterpress printing, typography and bookbinding at Scripps College in California, one of the Claremont Colleges, graduating in 1989.

“Scripps College has a long, proud tradition of having its own press,” Davis said. Her considerable bookbinding skills were first honed there.

“I’ve always been a huge reader and loved books,” Davis said. “Growing up in a small town, that was how I accessed the world. It’s a way to time travel, to develop empathy for other cultures.

“Books come alive when you open them. They’re the perfect pairing of body and soul. When holding a book and the story is good the book almost ceases to exist … and yet the story couldn’t be there without that physical vessel.”

Also interested in journalism, Davis worked on the five-college newspaper.

IN CHICAGO, Davis joined the Artists Book Works cooperative, taking classes to further her bookbinding skills, and in 1995 she founded Ma Nao Books, a publishing house and bindery in Portland.

“I could create handmade things of beauty with simple tools and skills easily learned. It connects you with an ancient craft,” she said. “People appreciate that with letterpress printing the type is making the paper sculptured. They notice that it’s hand sewn. People are hungry for that tactile experience.”

In 1996 Davis, who speaks Mandarin, received a grant to study bookbinding and related arts in the People’s Republic of China, along with an apprenticeship at the National Library of China in Beijing under Zhang Ping, head of its preservation department, which handled Asia’s largest, rarest book collections.

“Everything about books started in China,” Davis said. “Paper, movable type and bookbinding — they’re all Chinese innovations.”

For the next six months she would learn to make the five oldest book formats, including the scroll, using methods that haven’t changed for centuries.

Davis says studying the art of bookbinding and traveling around China was a dream come true. But there were hurdles to overcome, the biggest being the Chinese bureaucracy.

“Because I was not an ‘official’ scholar, I had to make my own opportunities,” she said. “If you’re unaffiliated, no one knows what to do with you. I was undefinable, and studying something strange to them.”

Yet when she returned to the states, she missed China.

The following year Davis did return, this time to become editor of Beijing’s first independent newspaper. It was an exciting, if short-lived, experience. They had to move their operations three times, once in the middle of the night.

“Eventually we were shut down by the government,” she said. “Because we were too successful.”

The government confiscated all their equipment.

RETURNING TO Portland, she got in with another startup newspaper. In the following years she taught classes, worked as an editor, proofreader, headline writer for the Portland Tribune, and gave presentations and workshops on Chinese bookbinding. She also published a number of books, including “Beijing Heart: A Tiananmen Story” in 1999 on the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, while an artist-in-residence with the MacDowell Colony.

Wanting to flesh out her business skills, Davis earned a Master of Business degree from George Fox University in 2021.

She says she always knew she would eventually come back to Montana. She has family here, had visited while growing up, and for the last 14 years has visited the Flathead Valley with her son every summer.

When offered a position at the Daily Inter Lake as its audience development director, she accepted.

“I love local news, its community-building aspect, and the opportunity to strengthen bonds,” Davis said. “In a smaller community, connections are easier to make. You can make such a difference being just one person.”

Having become the Northwest Montana History Museum’s executive director three months ago, Davis is eager to use her MBA skills.

“The vast majority of the people who work at the museum are unpaid volunteers, many have been here from the day the museum opened. I’m connecting with people passionate about what this place means,” she said. “When it was built in 1894 the town made an enormous investment both financially and in education. It adds gravitas to the cultural core of Kalispell, along with the library and the Hockaday.”

Originally Central School, the Richardsonian Romanesque-style building was constructed entirely out of local materials for $20,000. It was one of the first county high schools in Montana. In 1929 it became the first junior high school in the area. After the City of Kalispell completed a $2.4 million renovation in 1998, it was established as a history museum (formerly the Museum at Central School) and operated by the Northwest Montana Historical Society.

“This building has served so many people,” Davis said.

And it continues to serve the people. Davis says patrons keep coming through the museum's doors — more than 6,000 so far this year, a 25% increase from 2020-2021 combined.

“We continue to make partnerships with other organizations,” Davis said. “We have an energized board, new exhibits planned, a fundraising concert Nov. 5, an open house in December, and a monthly movie night and book club.

“We are truly a community center,” Davis said. “This is a space where people can enjoy, share and connect with what we have in common. And I love that I can help further its mission.”

Community editor Carol Marino may be reached at 406-758-4440 or community@dailyinterlake.com.