Museum move to Griggs on-going

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board heard an update Monday on the move to a new location, with items now in storage at the Griggs Building on the 100 Block of 5th Avenue and plans to move its board meetings there in a few months.

Board President Judi Dritshulas and H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation President Elaine Morse described during the board’s monthly meeting work completed in the past few weeks.

Dritshulas said the museum actually opening in the Griggs Building, which still requires cleaning, designing, remodeling and setting up exhibits, still is a ways off.

“There’s about 10 other steps, but it’s started,” she said.

After a decade of looking for a permanent home for the county museum, which moved from the Great Northern Fairgrounds to the former U.S. courthouse and post office then to two locations in the Holiday Village Mall, the foundation last November purchased the downtown building from Jim and Bonita Griggs. The purchase agreement required Griggs be able to continue operating their business while the museum relocates — something the board has said could take years — and that leasers of space in the building be able to continue to lease.

Morse and Dritshulas said some intense work sessions moved the collections in storage in the basement of the mall and in the Hill County Courthouse Annex to storage in the Griggs Building.

About two years ago the county commission told the board it needed the space in the annex and the museum would have to move its collections from there, which was one of the reasons for purchasing the Griggs Building, Morse said.

The work sessions included seven Montana State University-Northern football players coming down to help, she said.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do it without our football players,” Morse said.

After the move to the courthouse and post office, which was renamed the Heritage Center at the time, the museum moved to the Holiday Village when the museum was unable to keep up with payments, maintenance and repairs on the building. After moving to the west end of the Holiday Village, the museum moved to its present location on the east end of the mall when North 40, then known as Big R, expanded into the space the museum had previously leased.

Before the Griggs Building purchase, the board had explored building a new museum, with discussions of building a new structure on the Great Northern Fairgrounds or building a new museum near the Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump on the bluff north of the Holiday Village. The museum board also oversees the buffalo jump.

Morse said the plans also include moving the office, and the Museum and foundation board meetings, to the Griggs Building. She said the only suitable space for the office is on the top floor of the building where a local band now practices. She said the band has been given notice that they will have to stop using the space so the office can be moved in.

She said that move also will save the museum some money. The band pays $150 a month in rent while the office space in the Holiday Village costs $200 a month, Morse said.

Museum manager Jim Spangelo said the Clack Museum also may receive some historical items related to the building. He said a grandson of the family that opened the Nash Finch Wholesale Grocery in the building in 1925 contacted him about sending some items and information about the history of the structure.

Spangelo said having something about the building, which also had a Clack-owned gas station in front of it at one time, would be a good display.

“It would be … interesting to have a display of the history of that building, and he’s written one,” Spangelo said.