By Grace Bonnet
Serving with Upshur County Historical Society
The History Center Museum in Buckhannon has opened its new exhibit for the summer of 2024. This year’s exhibit is called The Stories They Tell: Upshur County Images, Objects, Voices, Places.
The History Center Museum, owned and operated by the Upshur County Historical Society, has been open for over 30 years, displaying a new exhibit each summer. Recently, the Society began displaying exhibits for two years to ensure that everyone who wishes to see the exhibit gets a chance to visit. Each of these exhibits showcase artifacts and photos about a different historical topic relevant to Upshur County. Past exhibits have covered topics such as Food and Foodways of Upshur County, Group Migrations to Upshur County, and Photographers, Writers, and Artists of Upshur County. For the 2022 season, the Society created an exhibit that was a timeline of the history of Upshur County, “From the Ice Age to the Modern Age.” This exhibit was revamped for the 2023 season.
In the many years that the History Center has been in operation, the exhibit has covered a wide range of topics. Thus, this year it was decided that the museum would display vignettes of more niche subjects that may have missed getting attention in the previous years. There are many interesting and unique materials housed in the UCHS Document Repository that have never been displayed in an exhibit. Some materials have been overlooked because, while interesting, they relate to a topic that is too narrow to warrant an entire exhibit. Upshur County Stories gives space for these materials to shine.
This exhibit is divided into sections that focus on a specific topic. Some examples of the topics include Early Views of Upshur County, Images of Industry, Celebrating Family, Women and Girls, Upshur County Landmarks, Ephemera, Things People Collect, and History of Photography. As the AmeriCorps Member serving with the UCHS, I had a chance to help contribute to the creation of this exhibit. This involved pulling documents, three-dimensional objects, and photographs from the collection that are representative of each section. Photos were transformed from a digital scan of the original to larger-than-life displays.
Visitors to past exhibits have shown a lot of curiosity about the Society’s historical photographs. The UCHS Document Repository houses a collection of over 10,000 historical photos. In response to this interest, this exhibit used more photos than have been used in any previous year. In service of this type of exhibit, I created an image index with the source and any extra identifying information about each photo. Museum docents (UCHS volunteers) have access to the index for reference, so that they can provide additional information about the photo subjects and answer any questions.
The History Center Museum opened Sunday, June 9th, to a sizable opening crowd. The History Center will continue to open every Sunday from 1pm to 4pm through to the end of September. If you would like to see the exhibit for yourself, feel free to stop by at 81 West Main Street, Buckhannon to see what we have to offer.
