Photos by Pat Eichner
Broomfield
Depot Museum
Chronicles the Community’s Experience with COVID-19 By Kristen Beckman
Just a few years after the original Broomfield Depot was built in 1909, an influenza pandemic spread around the world, affecting about 500 million people. One hundred years later, the world is again dealing with a global pandemic, and the Broomfield Depot Museum is chronicling how Broomfield residents are responding.
M
useum Coordinator David Allison said when the museum temporarily shut down last spring due to COVID-19, it tried to pivot and find ways to make good use of the time it had. That led to the Broomfield in the Time of COVID-19 project, which records the oral histories of Broomfield residents and collects artifacts related to the community’s response to the pandemic. Some of the recordings have been made into podcasts and one was turned into a re-enactment that depicted the experiences of a woman who lived through the 1919 pandemic. Allison said it has been interesting to see the similarities between both pandemics.
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Our Broomfield™ Magazine | March 2021
“Mask wearing is a great example,” said Allison. “There was a big push for people to wear masks during the influenza pandemic of 1919, but there were also many people who thought it wasn’t a good idea to wear masks. There was a push and pull and back and forth about whether it was safe to go out without masks or if they curtailed freedom too much. We hear those same conversations today. It’s interesting how history rhymes. It doesn’t necessarily repeat, but
