The Rogers Historical Museum is celebrating 50 years this month. Serena Barnett is the executive director of the museum. She spoke with Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani about how the museum chose to reflect and celebrate its own history, which began on Oct. 25, 1975.
Barnett: It was created by the city of Rogers to preserve the history of Rogers. What kind of took place in the beginnings of this idea of creating a museum was Opal Beck. She was a councilwoman on the Rogers City Council back in ’74, and she and a group of citizens decided that for the upcoming bicentennial—America’s bicentennial—they wanted to do a heritage project for the city, and to create a museum would just be the thing to do, so we could preserve our history for the future.
They got together and got the city council on board, and they created the museum as a department for the city of Rogers. Early on, it was mainly run by volunteers. We opened officially on Oct. 25, 1975. We were in a building on First Street. It’s the old Bank of Rogers building—that’s where Bangkok Thai Cuisine is now—and we were there for about five years. We kind of quickly outgrew that space.
In 1980, we acquired the Hawkins House, which is an 1895 home that was built on Second and Cherry. We moved into there, and then a few years later we were able to expand and build a building around the old house, which became the Key Wing Museum Exhibits Gallery. We were in that location up until 2015 when we acquired the old Haley Ford dealership building, which was across the street. At the time, it was home to The Morning News. We bought this building and renovated it, and we opened the new galleries in 2018 and have been there ever since. So this is now our second expansion that we’ve had in our history of 50 years.
Nourani: That’s really exciting. You guys are quite resilient, moving and adjusting to the city growing.
Barnett: Oh yeah.
Nourani: So part of you guys celebrating 50 years has been a special exhibit that you’ve been hosting. Can you tell me a bit about what that looks like?
Barnett: Well, we thought it would be really interesting to do kind of a scrapbook display of the museum’s photos and archives through the years. And so, in our gallery you will see photos taken from every decade—from the ’70s all the way up to the present day. And we have memorabilia from our archives that we have on show. Some of it’s never been seen before now. It’s just stuff that we’ve collected from our own history through the years.
One of the things I think is really neat is, talking about the expansions, when they had the Key Wing expansion they, of course, had a model made. This is in the days before 3D computers and all that, so they actually physically made this model to show and present to the city the idea of what the building would look like. And we have that in our collection, and so it’s on show in this exhibit.
We also have one of the earlier signs that we had hanging outside in the Hawkins House lawn that told that the museum was there—things like that. It’s just kind of neat to see all of our things from our past. You know, we talk about everybody else’s past all the time, but this is kind of a neat way to talk about ourselves and share our history.
Nourani: Yeah, that’s very well put. You guys are also doing a couple of celebrations leading up to the actual day, Oct. 25. Can you tell me a little bit about those?
Barnett: Sure. On Oct. 24, we are going to be kicking off our Stuffy Sleepover. It’s a birthday party sleepover for stuffed animals. Kids can come to the museum that Friday from 10 to 3 and register their stuffy. They’ll make a little felt blanket that’s stuffy-sized, of course, for their animal. And then overnight, the stuffies will have a fun time here at the museum. We’re going to do a story time, we’re going to get special tours, we’re going to have a little snack time in the garden, and we’ll be posting pictures throughout the evening of the adventures of the stuffies at the museum.
So anybody can go to our Facebook or Instagram and watch what’s going on here with the Stuffy Party. And then the next morning at 10 o’clock on Saturday, we’re going to have a cake party for the kids and the stuffies to come and have cake and just celebrate the museum. We’re going to have special 1970s crafts that morning. We’re doing Shrinky Dinks and beaded jewelry. Since we were founded in 1975, it made so much sense, right? So we’re going to have that.
Honestly, anybody that comes to the museum on Oct. 25, that Saturday, will be able to get a piece of cake and make some fun ’70s crafts and enjoy all of the party throughout the day. It’s something we’re looking forward to.
Now, the Friends of the Rogers Historical Museum—our membership organization—they are hosting Friday night, Oct. 24, a special History Club event where we will be having speakers from the museum’s past. The former museum director, Gabe Land, will be there. We’ve got former museum commissioner and volunteer Jerry Hyatt—he’s going to be coming. They’re going to speak about some of their memories about the museum through the years.
Even Mayor Hines will be there, presenting a special proclamation announcing the museum’s 50th anniversary day on Oct. 25. So it’ll be a really neat evening. We’ll have the galleries open from 4 to 6 for the members of the Friends to come and look at the museum’s anniversary exhibit if they haven’t had an opportunity to do so. And it is a members-only event, but if you’re not a member yet, you can sign up on the Friends website or even come and join at the door that evening before the event.
Nourani: Great. And also, I believe the exhibit will be continuing through the end of the year, so if folks aren’t able to come, they’ll be able to visit up until January.
Barnett: That’s correct. Through Jan. 10, we’ll have that exhibit on show.
Nourani: Is there anything else that you want to add? You said it earlier—always showcasing other people’s history and being able to do that for yourselves—I think that’s a really special opportunity.
Barnett: One thing I do want to mention—in conjunction with the museum’s 50th anniversary, we have commissioned a quilt from a local quilting group, Material Girls. They’ve created this name quilt for us. We have members of our staff, our volunteers, our museum commission, and Friends and Foundation members that signed quilt blocks. And so the quilters have taken these quilt blocks, embroidered them, and made this into a wonderful anniversary quilt that will be on display on the 24th and 25th at those events.
Following the anniversary, we’re going to put it in our permanent collection so it will be kept and preserved here at the museum forevermore.
That was Serena Barnett, executive director of the Rogers Historical Museum. She spoke with Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani late last week. You can find more information on events at the Rogers Historical Museum at rogershistoricalmuseum.org.
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