Two-thousand twenty-two was an excellent year for the Park City Museum in all aspects of our organization.
For starters, 2022 was our Executive Director Morgan Pierce’s first full year at the helm. The Museum also hired Lexy Hartford as a Museum Assistant early in the year. Lexy works in both the collections and education departments, working on cataloguing and inventorying collections, building programming for exhibits, leading tours, and more! Additionally, we hired several part-time Museum Store Assistants (Lauren, Dane, and Michelle) to welcome all who visit us.
In our collections department, we have been hard at working adding new materials to our permanent collections, institutional archives, and Research Library – available for our researchers and patrons to learn about and discover Park City’s incredible history. Accessions to the collection this year included 2002 Olympics memorabilia, clothing, and ephemera; Park City firefighter equipment; a host of yearbooks; and many other smaller collections. We also honored the life of Park City’s Historical Laureate Hal Compton (the namesake of our Research Library) with a bronze plaque at the Research Library entrance.
Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board also awarded us another grant to continue to digitize our enormous collection of 1940s to 1970s photographs and negatives from town photographer Kendall Webb – work which will continue into 2023 and beyond.
Credit: Park City Historical Society & Museum
The Museum hosted several traveling exhibits throughout the year, including Sign of the Times: The Great American Political Poster 1844–2012; Viewed from Afar: European Prints of the American Frontier West, 1759 – 1908; and ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues / En los barrios y las grandes ligas on Latino/a baseball and softball players and culture.
We saw several accomplishments in historic preservation this year. We once again presented ribbons to all historic structures in our historic district and have begun advocating for saving and preserving structures built during our first Ski Era (1963-1975) – an important era in our town’s history. We also hosted several architecture and historic preservation walking tours in upper Old Town, with plans to do more next year! We have also continued the very important work to preserve and maintain the historic Glenwood Cemetery.
Our biggest accomplishment in historic preservation was raising the Daly West Headframe behind the Montage in July, in conjunction with our Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History (FOSMMH) group, Deer Valley Resort, Park City Municipal, and the Empire Pass Master Owners Association. The FOSMMH also completed preservation work on the King Con Ore Bin and started work on the Alliance Watchman’s Cabin, Silver King Headframe building, and Thaynes Headframe building. Work on those latter three structures will continue into 2023 – and the FOSMMH has begun a capital campaign to fund these projects. Learn more at parkcityhistory.org/mining/ and donate to help save structures at https://parkcityhistory.org/donate-fosmmh/.
Additionally, the Museum held many lectures on various subjects this year, including mining history and a popular one on Ephraim Hanks (with a part two to come). We also kicked off a more robust historic hike program this year – available only to our members – trekking to various mining sites around town. Lexy has piloted new programming for exhibits and we sold out our annual Glenwood Event, where those buried there come back from the grave to tell their stories.
Research Coordinator Dalton Gackle wrote a book on Park City’s first 100 years, titled Images of America: Park City, published by Arcadia Publishing. Signed copies are available in the Museum Store. The store has received a lot of other new inventory, including this year’s annual historic ornament (featuring the Glenwood Cemetery gates), available in store and online.
Twenty-twenty-two also saw the return of and continued support of our incredible volunteers! Thank you to everyone who helps support us in our mission.
The Park City Museum is always busy and offering great experiences to visitors, locals, families, members, researchers… In other words: everyone! Be sure to stay updated at parkcityhistory.org or by joining as a member!
Happy New Year from the Park City Museum!