Clack Museum close to reopening in new location

With most of the displays already in its new location in the former Griggs Printing Building on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue, the board of the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum talked at their monthly meeting Monday evening about a major move of large displays set for April 23.

Museum Manager Emily Mayer said almost everything from the museum in Holiday Village Mall already is in the new location with a major operation last Saturday.

“It was quite the operation,” she said.

She said the displays are so large they will have to be taken to the front of the mall the use the large doors there.

H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation President Elaine Morse said the move last Saturday had a large number of volunteers and vehicles used to transport pretty much everything except the large dioramas from the museum’s location in Holiday Village Mall to the location on Fifth Avenue.

She said the dioramas will be moved April 23, with volunteers and equipment including a commitment from the Montana State University-Northern football team to help.

Mayer said they are still trying to line up seasonal employees to help with tours at Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump and at the museum, and that she may have to spend most of her time at Wahkpa Chu’gn if more tour guides aren’t found.

She said she has some returning guides but they will not be available for all shifts.

She said she has several tours of Wahkpa Chu’gn already scheduled including from schools and from a group out of Great Falls, who has toured the area before, who plan to spend a couple of days touring the area including Wahkpa Chu’gn and Havre Beneath the Streets, Fort Assinniboine and Bear Paw Battlefield.

She said the museum also has had several donations, including a pair of beautiful antique light fixtures that were part of the original decor of the Hill County Courthouse and were taken out thrown away in the 1960s, with some local residents salvaging them.

“They kept them all these years and wanted to know if we wanted them,” Mayer said, adding she hoped they could be used in a courthouse exhibit.

Morse said a new Facebook page is up for the museum and a new website, which will include both Wahkpa Chu’gn and the Clack Museum, is almost ready.

Board Member Kathy Shrauger also brought a proposal to amend the museum’s bylaws to increase the number of members of the board to nine instead of seven.

After discussing some changes for the wording of the proposal, the board agreed to list it as unfinished business to bring back at future meetings, saying it has to be discussed at two meetings of the board and, if approved by the board, sent to the Hill County Commission for its approval.

Shrauger said after the meeting that the intent of the increase is to bring more people to the board, which is a working board, so more would be available to help at events and with work parties.