New Jacksonville museum at Old City Hall takes another step forward

Published 4:30 pm Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Jacksonville City Councilor Ken Gregg has been working on the museum proposal at Old City Hall for about 18 months.

Use of Jacksonville’s Old City Hall as a museum is moving ahead, with plans for historical displays but adding a 21st-century technological touch.

A committee led by City Councilor Ken Gregg has been working on a museum proposal for about 18 months. The museum concept would also include an online website with historical information and walking tours that would be available on a smartphone app.

“The Old City Hall will be the museum base. It will be a small museum that will give an overview with interactive exhibits,” said Carolyn Kingsnorth, a committee member. “But the concept is the whole town is a museum. We will have both a real museum and a virtual one.”

The next step for the committee will be selecting a design firm that specializes in history museums, said Gregg. The committee has already made initial inquiries with some firms. They would be designing the interior for the 1,100-square-foot building, which dates from 1881, for displays.

Information indicates the firms charge about $400-per-square-foot to design and build the interior for museum use. Gregg hopes to cut that cost by having a firm do the design and then hire out the work locally.

“The idea is that the city won’t be spending any money in the design of his museum,” said Gregg. Working under the already-existing Historical Jacksonville Inc., which has nonprofit status, the committee will seek grants to fund museum expenses, starting with the design work.

Much of the work for the second and third elements of the museum proposal are already accomplished. For the website, the museum will use historical information complied and created by Historic Jacksonville over the last decade. That information will also be incorporated into the GPS-guided walking tours of the town’s historical features using the ECHOES app.

“We have already created the content for all the online tours,” said Kingsnorth, who is president of the Historic Jacksonville. Over the past decade, she has penned most of the accounts found on the website.

Visitors will have the options of selecting a variety of tours based on different criteria. Tours will be in categories such as amount of time available, distance to be covered or particular areas of interest, such as churches or saloons. Additionally, when near a historic site, a visitor will be able to call up specific information on it due to the GPS feature.

The city’s Planning Commission approved the museum use in November. That needed to be given an OK to change the use of the structure. In August 2022, the council gave the go-ahead to city administration to study use of Old City Hall.

The building was used for council meetings until 2021, when they were moved to New City Hall, the 1888 former Jackson County Court House, which was renovated in the past decade for use as the city’s administrative center. The historic burg hasn’t had a museum since 2009.

Besides Gregg and Kingsnorth, Lesle Parr and City Councilor Mike McClain are also serving on the museum committee. Kingsnorth and Parr both have experience in writing grant applications and will begin efforts for the museum in January.

Oregon’s State Historical Preservation Office will also have a say in what happens inside and on the exterior of the building. SHPO regulates what can be done to the outside of a designated historical landmarks. When a public government building is involved, it also oversees conversion to preserve the historical character of an interior.

For Old City Hall, SHPO involvement may be minimal as the inside was totally remodeled in 1981, said Gregg.

A rear portion attached to the building houses the Applebaker Fire Hall, which holds the town’s first fire engine as well as displays. The fire hall would be incorporated into any museum, said Gregg. ADA accessibility would be improved in an area beside the fire hall display.

“Many resident that have Jacksonville artifacts are offering to donate them to the museum. We want to make sure the exhibits and artifacts as specific to Jacksonville,” Gregg said. The group has also purchased the domain name jacksonvillemuseum.org.

A museum manager/executive director position will be established, likely on a part-time basis, to run the museum and create displays, said Gregg. The committee is looking at a half-dozen permanent displays and two or three that would rotate to keep things fresh. Assistance from foundations, corporations, and perhaps endowments and events would fund the position.

Volunteer docents would be sought to staff the museum when it is open. There is no plan to charge admission or a fee for use of the tour app. Agreements between Historic Jacksonville and the city have yet to be worked out for maintenance, utilities, insurance and other costs.

The city and the nonprofit already have agreements that govern the organization’s use of the Beekman House and Beekman Bank, both of which are city properties. Proceeds from events put on by the group have funded maintenance and repairs at the Beekman House, including major projects and repainting.

The Southern Oregon Historical Society had a museum in the old county court house building until 2009, when it relocated to Medford. The county gave the city that building in 2012.

Historic Jacksonville, Inc.’s website can be found at www.historicjacksonville.org.

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