5 days ago
Young County Museum nearing grand opening in new location
GRAHAM (KFDX/KJTL) — It's been a project three years in the making. In just a few months, the Young County Museum of History and Culture will be ready to open its new building.
Since 2022, the museum's new home has been undergoing major renovations. Now, with several exhibits already in their new home, the museum's executive director, Chandy Dunnam, is seeing a significant improvement from the old to the new.
'We came from such a small, condensed area of a kind of trial area, and now we are in this 6,000 square foot building that we can fill up already, probably,' Dunnam said.
One big boost, Dunnam said, is the flexibility the new space allows for. In the museum's main room, Dunnam said there will be a clear, walkable timeline of Young County's history, which is most dense around the mid-to-late 1800s.
'We have a lot of stuff jam-packed into that time, and it kind of gets confusing,' Dunnam said. 'So, we're going to have a timeline to help people understand it.'
Those who visited the museum's old building might remember the cramped individual rooms, with wagons and cars located in a barn-like room at the back. Now, with more space, museum treasurer Shannon Potts said that those big displays, like the wagons, can be displayed openly for everyone to see.
'It's open. We can add more exhibits to them,' Potts said. 'We can add more signage to let people know a little more, instead of just having to stand there and tell them what it is.'
The museum is also preparing to introduce new attractions with its vast space. Potts said one room will be a 2,000-book library, which will allow guests to conduct research into various levels of history concerning the Young County area.
'Today, we already had three different people come in looking for stories on their families,' Potts said. 'And so that is the purpose. One of the purposes that we really, really want to help with.'
But even with the extra space, Dunnam said there is only so much of Young County's history that can be displayed at a time. Though they can't display everything at once, museum staff are already planning some seasonal exhibit rotations.
'We also already feel like we've already outgrown this building,' Dunnam said. 'But we already realized that we are going to have to pick and choose, which is hard to do.'
Regardless of what's on display, by Labor Day weekend, more chapters of Young County history will be on display than ever before.
Although the expansion is progressing well and staff are excited about the museum's future, it still requires some additional support. If you're interested in getting involved with the Young County Museum of History and Culture, you can find out how to do that here.
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