Finney County Museum
Capturing the past By BECKY MALEWITZ
bmalewitz@gctelegram.com
I
nitiated in 1948 as a project of the Business and Professional Women of Garden City, the Finney County Historical Museum has grown and evolved with the times. Originally established in a small building that was moved to the Finney County Fairgrounds and was once used as an airbase hospital, the museum was open to patrons for only three days each year during the Finney County Fair. In 1962, the historical society voted to have its own building, and the county commission was asked to make a tax levy for the building fund. On July 4, 1964, the museum opened its doors to the public at its current site in Finnup Park. The total cost of construction was about $20,000. The museum was open 2 to 5 p.m. every day from May 15 through Sept. 15, and 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays the rest of the year. According to a newspaper clipping, the original curator would receive a $100 a month, and out of that money he or she could hire an assistant. Less than a year later, flooding brought an estimated 30 inches of mud inside the museum walls and standing water for three days, leaving their mark on shelving now sitting in the upstairs library. The site was cleaned and re-opened in December 1965. Both the new building and the flood helped the museum add to its collection. “When they got the new building, that’s when a huge
THE GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM
Becky Malewitz/Telegram
TOP: An example of one of the biggest technological changes the Finney County Historical Museum has experienced is how they archive their collections. Gone are the days of hand writing notes in a ledger, as artifacts are photographed or scanned into a computer database that allows users easy access to information. ABOVE: Finney County Historical Museum Collections manager Todd Roberts and Registrar Yadira Hernandez uncover some of the artifacts in the warehouse. influx of stuff came in, and after the flood, as well. I mean, you look at the books, and people donated a lot,” said current collections manager Todd Roberts. With the flood of new pieces for the museum’s collection, it was also important to start a system to catalog each item. “They really didn’t start keeping records until ’64, and that’s when they built the building,” explains Roberts.
He added that the current staff still is trying to sort through items donated before records were kept. “We’ve got some things that have numbers that we know came in before then, but what we are trying to do is go back and assign numbers to pieces that don’t have numbers even if we have to go back to 1948,” Roberts said. How items are cataloged is one of the biggest changes the
museum has experienced over the years. Gone are the days of writing in ledgers as everything is now organized on computers. “When I started here 15 years ago, they had all just gotten new computers,” Laurie Oshel, assistant director and research librarian said. “Oh my gosh, everyone has a computer now,” Roberts said. Museum staff and volunSee Museums, Page 6
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