Floyd County Historical Museum to host open house on Saturday

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

If it’s been a while since you’ve visited the Floyd County Historical Museum, now’s your chance.

On Saturday, the museum will have an open house. The facility will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and offer free admission to everyone who comes in, “because we want people to come see the museum and come see the changes we have been making,” said museum Director Jennifer Thiele.

Patrons can take a look at the redesigned gift shop and the main gallery, which features some new and many redesigned exhibits.

“I hope this is an opportunity for people who have never been to the museum to come try us out,” Thiele said. “They can get to know their local museum and learn what it provides for them.”

In addition, the Charles City Railroad Club will have the model railroad room open, with the trains running. Thiele said it will also be an opportunity to meet the new staff members, which include her and new collections technician Sara Renaud. The two have taken the positions that were held by Mary Ann Townsend and Elaine Mead, who both retired last spring.

Townsend became director of the Floyd County Museum in 2001, while Mead had been working at the museum since about 2005.

Thiele had previously worked in a museum on the north Oregon coast, where she was a historian and author, and assumed her new job on April 1, 2020. Renaud, who started last summer, has her masters degree in museum studies and has taken over care of the collections, as well as marketing and promotion. The museum also operates with about 40 volunteers.

The Floyd County Museum in Charles City is one of the Midwest’s largest rural county museums, with more than 50,000 artifacts depicting early and recent prairie life, both agricultural and industrial. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the museum opened its climate-controlled exhibit area in 1999, featuring historic farm tractors, implements and tools of the last century.

The museum is open to the public Wednesdays through Saturdays, and Thiele said that foot traffic has started to pick up in recent weeks. Much of the traffic is from outside the immediate area, which was one of the reasons Thiele decided to be open full hours on Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Thiele said the open house will also be a good opportunity for patrons to learn more about the museum’s Junior Historians summer education program, which is open to all grade levels. Each level gets its own Saturday this summer, and can experience “Hands On With History”

There will be a mini-tractor pull for younger kids, while middle school kids will learn how the museum operates and high school kids will research, design and install a new exhibit. Registration is now open.

Other upcoming events include Heritage Fest, which will be Saturday, July 31, and activities will take place in the museum as well as in adjacent Andres Park. The museum will have another open house on Labor Day Weekend.