1868 · the end of the 19th century A museum in the castle, a railway up the valleyMúzeum na hrade, železnica dolinou

In 1868 the first exhibition of a regional museum opened in the Thurzo palace inside Orava Castle. It makes the Orava Museum one of the oldest in Slovakia, and it is the decision that quietly saved the castle: a building with a museum in it has a reason to be kept up. At the end of the nineteenth century a branch railway was pushed up the valley from Kraľovany on the main Váh line, through Dolný Kubín and under the castle rock at Oravský Podzámok, towards Tvrdošín and Trstená. It changed the economy at once. Timber now left by train, which was faster, safer and possible in any season — and the rafts that had gone down the Orava for centuries stopped. A railway is never only a railway; it ends trades as well as starting them.V roku 1868 sa v Turzovom paláci na Oravskom hrade otvorila prvá výstava stoličného múzea. Oravské múzeum tak patrí k najstarším na Slovensku a práve toto rozhodnutie hrad ticho zachránilo: budova, v ktorej je múzeum, má dôvod, aby sa udržiavala. Na konci 19. storočia sa dolinou pretiahla odbočka železnice z Kraľovian na hlavnej považskej trati cez Dolný Kubín popod hradnú skalu v Oravskom Podzámku smerom na Tvrdošín a Trstenú. Hospodárstvo zmenila okamžite. Drevo odchádzalo vlakom — rýchlejšie, bezpečnejšie a v ktoromkoľvek ročnom období — a plte, ktoré sa po Orave plavili stáročia, prestali. Železnica nikdy nie je len železnica; remeslá aj končí, nielen začína.