BONNER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM
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Wood Grained Toilet Seat
This wood-grained toilet seat was installed in the Community Hall of Sandpoint, ID in 1932.  The Hall was remodeled in 1974 and this hinged, wooden beauty eventually came to reside in the museum's collection. Imagine the history that sat upon that?...’.

Communal latrines were a regular feature in Roman towns, with the bottom holes cut into the benches. These forica toilets are perhaps 2,000 years old, but they’re positively modern compared to the limestone seats carved for posh Egyptians and Harappans (from modern Pakistan), who lived around 4,500 years ago. These seats were placed over simple drainage gullies, which could be manually flushed with water, though poorer people instead used wicker stools with a hole cut in the centre, or squatted over a ceramic pot. As for our hinged toilet seat, that was a Victorian invention more closely associated with Thomas Crapper’s company.
You’ll perhaps be unsurprised to learn Victorian women also complained their husbands piddled all over the seat!
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Donor: Community Hall
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  • About
    • Mission
    • Donors & Sponsors
    • Board & Staff
  • Visit
  • Exhibits
  • Programs
    • Signature Events
    • Education Programs >
      • School Tours
      • Traveling Trunks
      • At Home with BCHS >
        • Young Explorers (0-10)
        • At Home Historians (11 and up)
      • Project-Based Learning
    • Oral Histories >
      • Submit Your Story
    • Historic Driving Tour
    • Historic Walking Tour
  • Collections
    • Connecting the Past to the Present >
      • Publications
    • Podcast: North Idaho Nuggets
    • Object Identification
    • Newspapers of Bonner County
    • Special Collections
    • Collection Based Research
    • Historic Preservation
  • Support
    • Membership
    • Sponsorship
    • Volunteer
    • Shop Museum Guild
    • Donate an Artifact