|
|
| Visitor Info | Exhibitions | Theatre | Planetarium | Education | Store | Membership | Foundation | About Us |
History of the Hastings Museum
Albert Brooking spent most of his life gathering artifacts and specimens from all over the United States. As much as he enjoyed amassing this assortment of objects, he was not satisfied with just collecting. He dreamed that one day he would be able to house his collection in a museum and share it with any one willing to visit. His only obstacle was where and how to establish a museum. The growing town of Hastings hosted many cultural and social events throughout the year. The idea of building a museum to add one more cultural experience to the list was strongly supported by the Hastings Chamber of Commerce. Possibly with coaxing from Brooking, Secretary Frank Beels spoke out at a Chamber of Commerce meeting stating that a museum would greatly benefit Hastings and suggested that Brooking's collection be the basis for the museum's displays. After many months of talk, a Museum Committee was formed on June 8, 1926 , at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. The first members of the committee were C.G. Lane , chair; A.M. Jones, vice-chair; and Howard Doty, secretary. Louis Stein and A.M. Jones were placed in charge of a petition to acquire a site in Highland Park for the museum. Agreeing with the importance of a museum, the Hastings City Council donated the site in Highland Park for the construction of a museum. They also agreed to provide salaries for two museum employees and to heat the building. However, the city could not afford to build a museum building. A temporary location was secured in the Hawthorne school building. Brooking was placed in charge of the museum and the work that began in November 1926 to prepare the building. A great deal of work was done before the doors opened to the public, including cleaning and repairing the facility, building cases, moving the collection, placing the objects and specimens in displays, and preparing labels. On January 9, 1927, over 300 people visited the museum. To their amazement they saw over 2000 mounted birds completed by Brooking, A.T. Hill's nationally known American Indian collection, hallways filled with firearms and more. The building also had space for lectures and other museum activities. The new museum's collections continued to grow rapidly. Soon Brooking was faced with a familiar problem, the Hawthorne building was bursting at the seams. Although there were many supporters who wanted to build a museum building, lack of funding remained an issue, and the city once again looked to the school district for possibilities. In January 1932, the Board of Education passed a motion to lend the Morton school building to the city for use as a museum. The building featured 12 large rooms and two large hallways. The west wing of the Morton building was used to display the bird collection and the east wing held the mammal displays. The American Indian collection was located on the second floor along with an auditorium. The museum reopened on April 17, 1932. Never far from the minds of the City Council or the Hastings Museum staff and board, was the hope of eventually owning a building that would permanently house the collection. A sense of urgency was felt because the Morton building was only a loan and was in need of much repair. Brooking also feared that the Morton building was a fire hazard and even with repairs, was a risk to the valuable collection. The Depression brought public relief programs funded by federal grants. The grants were designed to employ people and aid in projects that would benefit the public. Beginning in September 1935, the City of Hastings began applying for federal grants to help build a museum building. After much frustration and great efforts to secure funds, the city was awarded funding through the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in the fall of 1937. At long last, the collection that Brooking worked hard to gather would be housed in a new and permanent building. And the City of Hastings would have the largest municipal museum between Chicago and Denver. Kenneth H. Gedney, architect, had drawn up several floor plans for the building in conjunction with Brooking. Brooking wanted a top notch museum building that followed the latest museum practices. The final design featured a building that was fireproof, windowless and would be constructed in the shape of an "H" for Hastings . Because of limited funding, only part of the building would be completed at that time with plans to add the other section as money became available.
Soon after the ground breaking ceremonies on December 6, 1937, teams of mules started removing dirt in preparation for the foundation and basement of the building. Some mule teams were not as excited about the project as were the people of Hastings. In the December 22, 1937 issue of the Hastings Daily Tribune an amusing story appears regarding Jack and Jen, the mule team from Glenville brought in to help excavate the basement. It seems that the pair decided they needed a vacation from their work and bolted from the work site shortly after being harnessed. For the remainder of the day Rant Saathoff, owner of the team, and the Hastings police looked for the pair on all of the city streets and county roads. The team was located in the late afternoon east of Hastings and returned to work the next day. While construction work began at the new site, the Morton building was being evacuated and prepared for destruction. The collection was transported to storage at the Adams County Fair Grounds which was located across the street from the building site ( Hastings High School now stands on this location). Two-hundred trailer loads later, the collection was safely stored and the old school building was dismantled and materials taken to the building site. Long before the museum building was completed, preparation for the detailed animal dioramas began. The time consuming task of creating foliage for the displays yielded over 500,000 leaves made of wire, wax and cotton. Hired as the technical assistant and staff artist, Don Karr supervising six women employed to make the plants. Karr's first task was to make molds by casting real leaf specimens in plaster. The molds that he produced were given to workers who wrapped wire in cotton and placed it in the mold for the stem. A thin layer of cotton was then placed in the mold to hold the wax which was then added. Once the form was released from the mold, the workers trimmed the edges and repeated the process until they could make clusters of leaves to add to plant stems.
Iris Daurghty was the next staff artist hired for the museum. A student at Hastings College majoring in language art, she notified by her instructor, Mrs. Helen Tilden, that Brooking was looking for an art student to come work at the Hastings Museum. Upon their meeting, Iris informed Brooking that she had only worked in pencil and charcoal and had never done anything to scale that he was looking. He persuaded her to try because if she could do it in black and white, she could certainly do it in color and if she did well on small scale projects she could do well on large scale ones as well. For a wage of $25 a week, Iris painted the backgrounds of the dioramas; mounted animal skins, a skill she learned from Brooking; and other exhibit construction related tasks. Although Iris had never seen some of the landscapes she painted, her work on the dioramas is consider some of the best in country by many museum professionals today. Iris worked at the museum until 1947. She attended art school in New York and later went to work at a museum in Alaska before returning to Nebraska where she did art work for the University of Nebraska State Museum, the Nebraska State Historical Society and the Hastings Museum. Today, Iris and her husband Roger Nunley live in Hastings and are strong supporters of the museum. The new Hastings Museum building was dedicated during Jubilleum Days on June 15, 1939. The highlight of the day was the dedication speech delivered by Dr. Charles Abbott, secretary at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Abbott's speech was delivered after a grand introduction orchestrated from Washington, D.C. Vice President Garner started the festivities by pushing a button in Washington that set a charge of dynamite off at the fair grounds across the street from the new museum building. Simultaneous with the explosion were flashing lights to commemorate this long awaited day. Visitors to the new museum building enjoyed exhibits such as animal dioramas, historic artifacts, transportation and even a general store and sod house. The third floor was incomplete at the time of the opening and was not open to visitation for at least a year.
Many may remember the Hastings Museum as the House of Yesterday, a name that was established in 1941 as a publicity promotion. With the newly built facility, the staff and Trustees of the museum were looking to promote the new building and bring visitors to Hastings. They determined that the facility needed a catchy name that suggested the significance of the collection. Mrs. Stanley Abbott suggested the name House of Yesterday to reflect the building that housed artifacts of the past. Later that year, 265 road signs were placed along the highways and 50,000 brochures were printed using the House of Yesterday. A large sign with the new name was added to the building the next year. By 1978, there was a growing misconception about what the museum had to offer. Nationwide there were increasing numbers of historic houses being opened for public viewing. Because of the name, some visitors arrived at the House of Yesterday expecting to see a historic house. It was felt that if there were a number of people who were coming expecting to see a historic house that there was likely an equal number of people not coming because they did not want to see a historic house. The decision was made to remove the name from printed material, road side signs and the building. A relatively simple process as the name had never been legally changed. Although Brooking had passed away in 1946, the desire for the best museum in the region lived on in the city and the new director, W.E. Eigsti. On April 16, 1958, ground was broke for the first addition to the Hastings Museum. A planetarium, made possible by the J.M. McDonald Foundation, would feature a 24 foot dome over a theater space of 35 feet long and 30 feet wide.
The J.M. McDonald Planetarium dazzled the first visitors on September 11, 1958 with the first star show projected through a Spitz Model A-2 star projector. Through the years the McDonald Foundation has made additional grants to help keep the planetarium up-to-date with current technology and features that continue impress visitors and school groups as they learn about the universe around us. The collection of the museum has also continued to expand since Brooking passed away. By 1966, the collection had grown enough that thought was being given to completing the original design of the building. Finding that construction costs would be too great to make the "H" shaped building, plans were made to make an addition along the entire east side of the building. Funding for the expansion being a concern, admission to the museum was first charged on January 1, 1968 . All visitors to the facility would pay a nominal fee which was placed in the Museum Building Fund and would be used to expand the building. In order to provide for the educational mission of the museum, fees were waived for classes of Hastings school children attending the museum. Stanley Abbott was assigned the chairperson of the Museum Building Committee at the Board of Trustees meeting in December of 1968. Abbott worked hard to raise funds and support for the addition. On January 14, 1972, a $342,000 contract was signed for the construction of the new addition and ground was broke soon after. The new addition was named the Stanley Abbott Addition to formally recognize all of his dedication and work to making the addition possible. The name of the addition was revealed during the dedication ceremonies in 1974. Space again became a concern in the early 1980's and plans were made for another addition to the facility. This addition included two storage rooms for the collection and a children's interactive center. Soon a 67 feet long by 34 feet wide addition was added to the north side of the building. This space not only allowed for collection storage and Discovery Center but also a much needed planetarium office. On May 21, 1985 , members were able to see the children's interactive area at the preview of the opening.
The most recent addition to the museum is the large-format film theater. The museum announced plans for an IMAX theater on January 11, 1991. The theater was the first of its kind in Nebraska and one of the few in the Great Plains region. The projection system installed during the construction of the theater was leased from the IMAX Corporation. At the time, IMAX was the only system produced that would project the images of these large films onto the screen. As with the planetarium, technology changed and advancements were made in the realm of large format films and projection systems over the next ten years. In late 2001, the Hastings Museum did not renew the contract with IMAX Corporation and a contract was signed with MegaSystems, another large format projection system company. The theater closed on December 31, 2001. After six weeks of renovation and replacement of the projection system, the Lied Super Screen Theatre opened to the public on February 12, 2002. The new system not only shows large format film, it is also capable of showing 35mm films such as those used in movie theaters. This allows for greater selection and flexibility in what the Lied Super Screen Theatre has to show. The new millennium promises more growth and change for the Hastings Museum. Technological advancements, the needs of visitors, collection enhancement and preservation, and public education will continue to be of utmost importance to the staff and Board of Trustees of the museum as it carries on the dreams of Albert Brooking who so lovingly began collecting in hopes of one day opening a museum over 100 years ago. The dedication and efforts of Albert Brooking and the citizens of Hastings built the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History into a fantastic museum that will continue to attract and fascinate visitors from all over the world for many generations to come.
|
Brooking built a new home in Trumbull, Nebraska shortly after moving there in 1908. The new house included a den for Albert's growing collection. He is pictured here in the midst of a diverse collection of artifacts and animal specimens, many of which remain in the permanent collections of the Hastings Museum.
As Albert's collection outgrew his living space he began displaying portions of it in Hastings businesses. For a short time in 1911, this display could be seen at the Bostwick Hotel Saloon in Second Street.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Contact Us | Site Index |
|||||||||||||||||||||
