LJWorld.com / Open house to help fund new museum at lake

Archive for Thursday, June 14, 2007

June 14, 2007

Martha Parker, director of the Wakarusa River Valley and Heritage Museum, talks about the Underground Railroad in the area. The museum will have an open house and fundraiser Saturday and Sunday to help build a new and bigger building.

Wakarusa River Valley and Heritage Museum

Construction of a new 4,800-square-foot museum at Clinton Lake could begin this fall.

A preliminary design will be on display during an open house and fundraiser this weekend at the Wakarusa River Valley and Heritage Museum in Bloomington Park at Clinton Lake. The approximately $400,000 museum would be built nearby, according to its director, Martha Parker.

The open house will be from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visitors can see the exhibits, walk the museum grounds, comment on the new museum design or suggest other changes.

“We want their ideas. We want something that’s worthy of the valley and tells the local history,” Parker said.

The design calls for an exhibit gallery that would feature openness and natural light, Parker said. The museum also would have a fellowship hall and storage area. The museum’s signature piece would be a guiding light beacon that would shine day and night. It would represent the Clinton and Wakarusa areas’ ties to the Underground Railroad, which led slaves to freedom during the Civil War.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” Parker said.

The current museum building, which is a 1930s-era converted shed for eight cows, would be used for storing tables, chairs and large exhibits.

Parker said gardens and other landscape elements could be added along with exhibits that would complement the landscape.

Lawrence resident Tensie Oldfather supports the museum and thinks it often goes unnoticed. She and her late husband, Charlie, lived in the Clinton area.

“It’s an important part of the county, yet some people probably don’t know about it,” Oldfather said.

The museum focuses on telling local history, including pioneer life, rural education, farming and antislavery. It is on the site of the old brick house built by Col. J.C. Steele in the 1860s. Some of the brick and stonework from the house can still be seen.