Museum board hears Griggs Building update

At its monthly meeting in Havre Monday, the H. Earl Clack Museum Board heard that work on the future home of the museum is progressing, but much more needs to be done.

Manager reports also noted that attendance at the museum and at the Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump are up from last year.

Board Chair Judi Dritshulas, giving the museum manager report, said that the number of visitors at the museum are up, at 917 for July compared to 850 last year.

Anna Brumley, manager of the Wahkpa Chu’gn archaeological site, reported numbers there also are up, by about 230 additional visitors for the year.

Dritshulas said she and H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation Board Chair Elaine Morse recently visited the Griggs Building, and that the top floor of the building is cleaning up nicely. She said much more needs to be done, especially in the basement, however, and added that another cleaning day should be set.

The funding foundation purchased the building from Jim and Bonita Griggs late last year for the purpose of moving the museum there, with the proviso that Griggs Printing would continue to operate in the building and other people who lease space would be able to continue to do so while the museum groups work to clean and renovate the structure to hold the museum and to act as a storage space for its collections.

The board has been looking for a permanent site for the museum for more than 10 years. It now is located in the east end of the Holiday Village Mall.

Board members commented Monday that actually opening up in the Griggs Building, located on the north end of 5th Avenue, is likely years away.

The building itself is a bit of local history, including in its 90-some years housing a dairy, Anderson Wholesale — the name of which still is painted on the south side of the structure — and Penningtons distribution before Griggs moved into the building about 25 years ago.

In her report, Brumley said the heat has been shutting down the tours of the more-than 2,000-year-old archaeological site where Native Americans would drive bison over the bluff behind where the Holiday Village now stands, then kill and butcher the animals.

The site uses display houses built around actual archaeological dig sites, rather than displaying artifacts from the site in a museum or visitors center, and extensive work in the last few years has replaced the display buildings with modern facilities.

But, Brumley said, when the temperature hits 94 degrees in the exhibits the tours shut down.

With temperatures in the high 90s in the last few weeks, that has been a regular occurrence, she said.

“We have had to close the site early almost every day since the first of August … ,” Brumley said. “It’s just too hot.”

Brumley said contractors suggested that adding insulation on the top of the structures in the ceilings will keep the heat down. That work is planned for September, after the tours have wound down for the season, she said.

Dritshulas also welcomed the newest member of the board in absentia. Thomas Huether, Boy Scouts of America Hi-Line district executive, was unable to attend Monday’s meeting, but Dritshulas welcomed him to the board, saying he has been approved as its newest member.