The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo is trying to repair parts of a historic building that houses its offices and gift shop. This comes as weather and water are taking a toll on the structure. The original sandstone and limestone structure was constructed in 1909 of material quarried locally. It originally was built and served as one of several Carnegie libraries in Wyoming.
The museum was honored by the Institute of Museum and Library Science’s (IMLS) 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. It received this honor due to its outreach efforts including Art Museum Mondays for its school programs that it puts on with its small staff of only three full-time employees.
The museum is named after James Theodore Gatchell, who operated a pharmacy in Buffalo from 1900 to the 1950s. He was also an amateur historian, whose vast collection of artifacts tell the stories of the region’s Native American tribes, pioneers, and other important events in the history of Buffalo and Johnson County. After three years of fundraising after his death in 1954, the museum was established next to the then-Carnegie library in 1957.
The Carnegie building, which houses the museum’s office and gift shop, is attached via a lift and staircase to the original museum building. Its elevation is slightly higher than that of the Carnegie building, causing rain, snow, and ice to accumulate against the historic structure.
“That type of material does weather away quite literally, and we love the building. It's beautiful and it's very historic, it's got so many good memories for a lot of our local residents in it, too,” said Sylvia Bruner, executive director of the museum. “The front of the building in particular is taking a lot of damage, partially from wind and rain as the obvious culprits.”
Museum staff are working with an historic preservation firm in Montana that has agreed to break up the repairs into smaller phases as funds are raised. The total cost of the repairs is around $600,000. Bruner expects that the entire fundraising period will last approximately two years. The amount that’s needed is nearly double the museum’s yearly budget. Johnson County has already set aside $150,000 for the repairs and by August. The county also provides around half of the museum's budget each year with the other half coming from museum admission fees and gift shop sales.
“I also think it would be really cool to be able to show our community, ‘Hey, you know, we spent $150,000, and this is what we got done with it and here's why we need [additional funds to] kind of step it out in that process,’” Bruner said.
A drainage system that diverts water away from the museum’s entrance to the adjacent lawn is one of the key aspects of the repairs and infrastructure upgrades. Another is the removal of concrete slabs that come up against the stone blocks of the building. Located near a busy intersection, the vibrations from traffic cause damage to the blocks. Bruner said a layer of felt or padded material is necessary to reduce these vibrations so that they won’t cause further damage to the building.
The national IMLS recognition also comes with a $10,000 award, which may be used for repairs, though the museum’s governing board will have to approve it for that specific use. A ceremony will be held next month in Washington, D.C. where museum staff will officially accept the medal. The museum is the only library or museum in Wyoming to be honored with the medal and is one of only two other institutions to receive this accolade. The others include the Urie Elementary School Library near Lyman in 2000 and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody in 2008.
“We're insanely excited about this [honor],” Bruner said. “It's a pretty big deal and I never would have guessed that we would be getting one of their national medals.”
The position the building and museum hold in the community is evident as is the need for repairs.
“I think that the community in general has a real fondness for the building, too, and I think that that's why it's existed for this long,” she said. “When it was in use as the library, they took really good care of it, and it's not so far gone that we can’t continue to take good care of it, but we also have to take action now and not let it continue to get worse.”
