Museum board discusses coming move and broken door

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board discussed at its monthly meeting Monday ongoing maintenance issues at the museum as well as the museum’s coming move to its new location at the former Griggs Printing Building on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue.

Museum Manager Emily Mayer said the front door of the current museum is badly stuck, a problem that has been around for some time but has now become impossible to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Mayer said the door has been an issue for a while, but there were always ways to get it open with some effort, but now the normal methods have stopped working.

She said she’s tried everything but there is no way for her to get it open.

The board briefly discussed whether it was worth it to repair given that they are moving locations so soon, but they determined that they’d need the door open to move efficiently anyway.

Board Vice-Chair David Sageser and board member Eli Salapich said they can get the door open with some work, but the former said the door will need to be taken off to fully repair, which may be difficult considering its manufacturer no longer exists.

H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation Board President Elaine Morse said the last time the door was looked at it was determined that the door itself may not be the problem but the floor under it which is heaved and may be the cause of their door-related woes.

Mayer also said the heating system in the museum is broken, which board members said they’d have to have someone come look at.

Mayer said things at the museum have been quiet over all, but they did get 193 people go through during last year’s Dinosaur Christmas event, which board members agreed was a huge success.

As for the museum’s coming move, Morse said it will likely be about a month before serious plans for the move are set, but progress is being made getting the building ready.

She said the bathrooms are half sheet rocked and fully plumbed but they’re still waiting for fixtures.

She said the company doing the abatement on the building is demanding payment for the job but the work is not done, so she’s gotten written assurance from them that they will finish the job, which includes some painting and putting up storm windows.

Morse said she also filled out a building permit with the city which did a walk through of the building and found no major issues.

The board also discussed a number of items that were recently offered to the museum, some of which were declined because they either weren’t local enough or old enough.

They did, however, accept some Civil War-era artifacts that belonged to Bill Clack, a relative of H. Earl Clack’s half-brother, including muskets, bayonets, buttons and more.

Mayer also said she’s looking to stock the museum’s gift shop with a book written by April Farnham about bronc-riding legend Marie Gibson.

She said Gibson is an all-too-often-overlooked figure in the sport and its great that someone wrote a book about her and she’d like to put it in the gift shop.

“Here is a woman who the future king of England would drop everything to go see her perform,” she said.