Museum board hears about new building

The board of the H. Earl Clack Museum heard more about its future location and about websites during its monthly meeting Monday.

Elaine Morse, head of the museum foundation board, said she had been going through the Griggs Printing Building on the north end of 5th Avenue to sketch out maps and start planning the move into that location.

“There will be lots and lots of work committees,” she said. “It will be a fair amount of time before we are even ready to start transporting our stuff there.”

The funding foundation last week purchased the building from Jim and Bonita Griggs. Jim Griggs has operated his printing business in the building for the last 25 years.

Morse said the agreement is to allow Griggs to operate his business in the location, as well as giving time for people who rent space from Griggs to continue using the location while they find other space and move out.

Cleaning out what now is in the space the museum will use, moving in the museum artifacts and setting the shelving and displays will require careful, extensive planning, museum board chair Judi Dritshulas said, so the items only will have to be moved once.

The location also will provide a space for the museum to bring all of its artifacts together. They now are stored in a variety of locations including at Fort Assinniboine, in the Holiday Village Mall basement — the museum now is located in the east wing of the mall — and in the Hill County Courthouse Annex.

Morse said work also is proceeding on other new locations, on the World Wide Web. Foundation board member Lanny Wilke has completed a new website for the foundation, at http://clackmuseumfoundation.org. She said that site will include a page where people can shop for merchandise, including “Spirit of the Buffalo” and “Buffalo Jump Mural” T-shirts depicting the Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump archaeological site also overseen by the museum board.

Foundation board member Thora Beck is close to completing a new website for the museum, Morse added.

The board also heard an update on the Dinosaur Christmas children’s event scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 14, at the museum and a book signing being held by board member and local author Gary Wilson at the museum Saturday, Dec. 21. Wilson will be signing copies of his latest work on local history, “Adventure Tales of Montana’s Last Frontier.”