The Park City Museum has had a wonderful year (and decade)! Along with celebrating our 35th birthday, we also celebrated 10 years in our expanded Museum. We have had many events, exhibits, visitors, and experiences to share. But this year was highlighted by the hiring of two new employees.
In May, we welcomed our new Research Coordinator: Dalton Gackle. Dalton handles any and all research requests from museum patrons, businesses, media outlets, and more! This includes inquiries about ordering our historic photographs (which pair well with historic homes and buildings). He also processes and scans collections, manages our social media and website, and coordinates these Way We Were articles. Contact him at research@parkcityhistory.org
Then in July, we welcomed our new Museum Assistant: Hanna Howard. Hanna wears a few different hats at the museum, assisting with educational programming, school group and historic walking tours , and cataloging incoming donations to the Museum’s Collections. She also keeps Museum members updated by writing and editing our quarterly newsletter. Drop her a line at assistant@parkcityhistory.org
Through the year, we had over 130,000 visitors come through our front door, who explored our intriguing traveling exhibits: Lines with Power and Purpose: Editorial Cartoons; Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland; and Patios, Pools, & the Invention of the American Backyard. To see the descriptions of these exhibits, visit our website.
Our current traveling exhibit, A Woman Speaking to Women: The Political Art of Nina Allender, takes a look at one of the most significant political artists of her era, capturing the spirited struggle for women’s rights as it happened and providing a unique window into this intense chapter in women’s history. The coming year will see exhibits on the Transcontinental Railroad, visual culture and the struggle for Civil Rights, Japanese internment, and the life and work of photographer Jacob Riis.
On Memorial Day, we held a ceremony commemorating the B-18 bomber accident that happened over Park City on November 17, 1941. Over 50 family members of the men who experienced the crash attended. Then on October 30 we unveiled an historic plaque recounting the event; you can visit the plaque near the front walkway of Squatters Roadhouse Grill.
In the collections realm, we have been hard at work cataloguing and digitizing our Kendall Webb Collection, helping you to access Webb’s incredible collection of photos. Webb was an active photographer in Park City from the 1940s through the 1970s, and he also collected historic photographs. You can view a partial finding aid for this collection on our website.
Credit: Park City Historical Society and Museum, Kendall Webb Collection
Speaking of our website, we launched a new version to make it more accessible for our visitors, patrons, and researchers! Make sure to check it out: parkcityhistory.org.
We have also been very active in historic preservation throughout town. In addition to hosting the Historic Home Tour and the Glenwood Cemetery Tour (which raises funds to preserve the cemetery), our Executive Director, Sandra Morrison, and the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History are working to save the last remaining historic mining structures that lend a sense of authenticity to our mountain town. There is still a lot of work to be done. To learn more, visit parkcityhistory.org/friends-of-ski-mountain-mining-history.
The Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Sunday from noon until 6 p.m. We hope you take some time in this new year to visit, do some research in our Research Library, and help us protect and preserve Park City’s history and historic structures. Happy New Year and new decade everyone!