Mills County Historical Museum Gets A Makeover

The renovation of the Mills County Historical Museum is a work in progress, but a major portion of the remodel has been completed just in time for a grand reopening this weekend during the annual Keg Creek Day celebration.

Major renovation work has been taking place at the museum and the surrounding campus at Glenwood Lake Park over the past six months.

“The focus of what we’re doing is to make it (museum) exciting again,” museum board member and volunteer Ted Mintle said. “We’ve also focused on making the museum and other buildings more handicapped accessible.”

The accessibility improvements include a new entrance and door to the museum, new restroom facilities and wider sidewalks and ramps throughout the museum campus.

Once inside the museum, the most noticeable change is a remodeling of the entrance area and main floor.  Gone are the large display cabinets that used to greet visitors as soon as they entered the facility, giving the main floor at the museum a brighter and more open feel. Ceilings have been lowered and many of the fluorescent lights have been replaced with track lighting. The front office is gone, replaced by a “Founders’  Room,” which pays tribute to Mintle’s grandfather (Raymond Mintle) and other former residents who built and established the museum in 1959.

Much of the area on the main floor that previously housed the large display cases will now be utilized for special exhibits that will be rotated out on a regular basis – the first being a Civil War display created by museum board member Stephen Hunt.

Museum volunteer Lyn Mintle said the special exhibits and other ongoing changes and improvements will provide patrons with a new experience each time they visit the museum.

“Every time you come through here, we want you to see something different,” she said.

Ted Mintle said the museum is actively recruiting volunteers who have an interest in researching a specific area of local history - possibly military, business community, politics or agriculture. The long-term vision for the museum is to provide more details in the descriptive panels of each exhibit, giving visitors a better understanding of the significance of the displays and a better idea of how specific items in an exhibit may have been used. Many of the current panels list only a donor.

“We need volunteers who are passionate about one specific area,” Ted Mintle said. “They could be the person to research and oversee that specific area.”

Any person interested in doing volunteer work for the museum should call 527-5038 or contact any museum board member.

The museum is open Thursdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Sundays from 1-4 p.m.