BOUSE MUSEUM
10am to 2pm
State Parks Board for a grant to restore the old Assay
Office in 1991. The Bouse Chamber of Commerce
had identified and purchased with donated funds the
Assay Building, one of the only two remaining original
structures in Historic Bouse.
The Bouse Chamber of Commerce started restoring the
old Assay Office in 1991. It was completed about
1993. It is now the Bouse Chamber of Commerce
Office as well as the Bouse Museum and visitor center.
The building was built in 1902 and used as the assay
office for the Swansea and other mines up and down
the Bill Williams River. As the years went by the
assayer P.P. Thompson, a U.S. Mimeral Surveyor,
lived in the assay office until about 1923. Besides
surveying Swansea and other mines he also surveyed
the original Bouse Townsite, in 1910 and the Worley
Addition to the Bouse Townsite in 1916.
of the assay office as their home. Mr. & Mrs. Frank Kurtz,
who lived across the then dirt road helped them with the
basic necessities.
The Museum has historical artifacts from the secret Camp
Bouse where the secret M3A1 (T-10 shop tractor) tank,
nicknamed the "Gizmo" by the troops, was used for training.
The Museum has booklets and maps of the area which includes
the trails to the Swansea and Planet Ranch ghost towns.