The Butterfly Lodge Museum offers a glimpse of life in this rough country in the early days of the 20th Century and also plays host to concerts, art fairs and other events most weekends during the summer tourist season.

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Butterfly Lodge Museum / Historic Greer

Surrounded by wildflowers that drew countless visits from butterflies, the Greer, Arizona cabin belonging to author J.W. Schultz begged for a name that captured the beauty of the land. It became Apuni Oyis in the language of the Blackfoot people of the northwestern plains, or Butterfly Lodge.

Housed in a century old hunting cabin, the Butterfly Lodge Museum – a registered national historic landmark – offers a unique view of lives as they were lived in the early years of the 20th Century.

Built In 1913 – A Lodge Is Born

Built by John Butler and Cleve Wiltbank in 1913, the Butterfly Lodge “was to serve as a hunting lodge and seasonal retreat” for Schultz and his son, Hart Merriam Schultz, better known by his translated Blackfeet name Lone Wolf, according to documents supporting NRHP designation. In his time at the lodge, J.W. Schultz, as he was also known, met local teenagers George and Hannah Crosby, who told Schultz of their adventure in a fire lookout atop Mount Baldy (then named Mount Thomas). Schultz spun the tale into the book “In The Great Apache Forest: The Story of a Lone Boy Scout”.

J.W. Schultz – By The Book

Schultz is believed to have first visited Arizona in 1906 – about four years after the death of his Native wife Muti-Awotan-Ahki. He lived in Los Angeles for a time, working for the Los Angeles Times and penning his first book, “My Life as An Indian”, in 1907. He would go on to write 36 more books over the years.

Since 1914, Schultz had spent considerable time at his seasonal cabin, which he had named the Butterfly Lodge, and said in the foreword of his book about Crosby that the boy had personally relayed his sensational story about his work in a fire lookout atop Mount Baldy.

A New Yorker Goes West

Schultz was born Aug. 26, 1859 in Booneville, New York in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. He spent his early years developing a deep fondness for nature and started making his way west as a young man. He landed at Fort Conrad along the Missouri River tributary that is the Marias River, according to the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, to which Schultz was inducted in 2009. He soon found himself spending more time with the Pikuni Blackfeet Natives and later married Muti-Awotan-Ahki, with whom he had a son, Hart Merriam Schultz, who may have been more well known by his translated Blackfeet name, Lone Wolf.

Lone Wolf, who later became a celebrated Native artist, often used the lodge as his studio and sold his works to Grace Coolidge, former first lady of America’s 30th President Calvin Coolidge, as well as the 31st President Herbert Hoover, among countless others. He was a critical success, earning positive reviews in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

Preserving The Lodge – A Community Effort

Years later, with the deaths of J.W. Schultz and Lone Wolf long past, the passionate work of Greer residents Karen and Sam Applewhite led to the lodge landing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The Applewhite’s along with the help from others in the community would later restore the Schultz cabin and opened it to the public as the Butterfly Lodge Museum for the 1995 summer season. The museum celebrated its 30th year of operation in 2025.

During the busy summer months, the Butterfly Lodge Resort hosts events nearly every weekend, including concerts and cookouts, art shows and pancake breakfast. The museum is open to visitors Thursday-Sunday from Memorial Day to late September.