(Spirit Lake)– A new, state-of-the-art interactive exhibit will soon be unveiled at the Dickinson County Museum in Spirit Lake. It’s located in the former Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad depot, constructed on the site at which it currently stands, in 1884. Museum Director Cole Clawson says the project represents four years of planning and design…
“We partnered with Edwards Creative, they’re a group out of the quad cities and they have been just so exponentially supportive in terms of helping us digitize photos and make sure that our exhibits really highlight the history of the railway in Dickinson county and really bring history to life through the railway. That’s one of the things that we really like to highlight at the Dickinson County Museum. By stepping back into our kind of interactive train depot exhibit you’ll kind of go back into the 1880’s through the 1920’s and get to live history as you might have lived on a railway.”
Clawson says the project represents an extensive amount of research…
“Just so passionate about making sure that each community in Dickinson county is highlighted and talking about the different aspects of the railroad, the different specific rail cars, specialty cars, and kind of how the railway really affected the county of Dickinson county.”
And for the first time since the early 1970’s, the sounds and whistles of locomotives can once again be heard in the depot…
“Edwards Creative actually subcontracted someone from the Field Museum in Chicago and so you kind of encounter different audio landscapes as you move about the exhibit. So we’ve got the click clacking of the telegraph, you’ve got kind of the rumble of the rail cars, we’ve also got kind of the ebb and flows of the lakes, so it really gives you a full sensory experience and it makes you, again, like I said, it kind of brings you back into the past.”
Clawson says the new display will officially open to the public at an event scheduled for 3:00 pm Sunday, October 26th…
“We’re going to start off with a talk by Don Hofsommer who was here 50 years ago when the depot was first inducted as a museum. So it’s going to be a real, full circle moment. And then at 4:00 we’re going to do the official opening, so it will be about an hour talk and then at 4:00 is the grand, grand, reveal.”
Clawson says they’re extremely grateful to the donors and museum volunteers who helped make the project a reality.
