The Cherryvale Historical Museum board has announced that the museum will move to a new building in the new year. In January, board members and volunteers will begin transitioning from the current location, 215 E. Fourth St. in Cherryvale, to the new building at 322 E. Main, the former First Baptist Church and Fellowship Hall. The church congregation had grown small, and without a permanent pastor, the remaining members decided that it was time to offer the structure to another nonprofit group. The museum board saw this as an opportunity to bring the museum onto Main Street in a more visible and larger location, opposite the public library and Lincoln Elementary School. The museum board said in a prepared statement that it looks forward to preserving the 1902 historic Baptist Church building to honor past and future generations. The Cherryvale Museum began in 1964 with the donation of the glass and china collection from the estate of Opal Conduitte Evans, a former Cherryvale citizen. In 1964, the building on East Fourth Street had become vacant as Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. upgraded from a bank of phone operators at switchboards to a modern dial headquarters on East Main Street. Volunteers moved the museum into the 1,700-square-foot building in 1964 and board members quickly began acquiring historical items from the first 100 years of Cherryvale’s history. Since the museum’s beginnings, the building has reached capacity, with display cases and file drawers filled to the point that new items have had to be limited.
Source: Parsons Sun
