The museum will move from its North Court Street location to West State Street this year.
The Athens County Historical Society and Museum purchased the former First Christian Church building, on West State Street, Jan. 6 to increase space for artifacts and events.
The society paid $800,000 for the building in a two-part deal that included the sale of the society's Court Street building to Cornwell Properties. The 65 N. Court St. location was sold for $758,500 in October, according to a previous Post report.
“It has more space to exhibit more of the artifacts,” Tom O’Grady, executive director of the museum, said. “It has much larger public spaces for events or programs.”
He said the museum’s former location could only offer events and programs for about 40 people before it was full, and that with the new space it could triple, or even quadruple that number.
In addition, when it reopens, the center will become a more regional museum for Southeast Ohio because many other nearby counties do not have as many historical collections, according to a previous Post report.
The center has been on North Court Street for 35 years.
The new building was constructed 100 years ago, and O’Grady said the society hopes to maintain its architecture.
“It’s getting a whole new career at 100 years old,” he said.
When the museum reopens, it will be renamed the Southeast Ohio History Center and will be at 24 W. State St.
“We have to move our collections, which entails over 70,000 artifacts donated by local citizens over the past 30 years,” O’Grady said. “We also have to move our library full of documents and our photo library.”
O’Grady said he expects to be fully moved into the new building by July with events and programs possibly occurring even sooner.
The museum’s gift shop will remain open from noon until 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and the library will remain open from noon until 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and Saturday by appointment, according to a society news release.
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