(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Museum continues to see a significant increase in visitors. Curator Mary Dreier says numbers have gone up dramatically in recent years…
“Attendance in 2021 was a little over 500 people. Fast forward to today and the Dickinson County Museum is an active, vital and engaging place for people of all ages, abilities and interests whether visitors or longtime residents, due to our exciting depot project, bringing the depot to life, which we are beginning after the first of the year. We’ve gotten it funded through private donations and grants and it is a done deal. The new exhibits will be installed early fall of this next year.”
Dreier says many of those exhibits will be interactive, featuring the hustle and bustle of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific depot back in the day when trains still made their way through the Iowa Great Lakes.
Dreier says a new research area and new exhibits are also drawing more people through the doors including one chronicling some unknown stories from Abbie Gardner…
“Our most popular exhibit is Abby’s Stories where we only have a few very priceless artifacts in the exhibit, but we use staff to tell the stories and they’re stories people haven’t heard. People just love that exhibit. This spring we’ll be doing a new exhibit on the women of Dickinson county and many of our exhibits include QR codes that link to other websites or videos that explain more of the exhibits to folks.”
She adds the Dickinson County Museum is continuing to expand its outreach programs and is working closely with schools in the county.
