Plans for an addition to the Gilboa Museum

Panel 4: Blending cultural history with natural history 

The society had been collecting materials on cultural history and had performances and displays on fashion, quilts, and the like, but did not have sufficient space to adequately display our collection. We hosted a 1920s fashion show in the school and tried to purchase the Ulster and Delaware railroad station in South Gilboa for this type of event. The financial support, however, did not come through.

Subsequently, we looked into the possibility of renovating the Forks-in-the-Road Schoolhouse but found it to be equally  beyond our reach — it had no water, plumbing, and electricity with questionable foundation and roof. Reading about the schoolhouse in our newsletters, Nick Juried posed the possibility of moving it to the property near the museum. Coming up for the school reunion, Nick arranged to take a look at the building.

Nick Juried does not have tunnel vision when he sees a need. The weekend after the reunion, Nick and his friend Dottie Pickett broached the possibility to the Historical Society of putting an addition onto the existing museum.

Within days, the society realized the possibility. Society President Linda Newerla contacted Mike Morkaut about acting as a construction supervisor for the society, and set up a meeting in the Town Hall to flesh out plans.

General goals of the plan

Nick’s proposal was that a space similar to the existing building be added on to the northwest corner and perpendicular to the museum, and it also called for a covered porch extending to the west end of the addition. A narrower covered porch would connect to stairs and front door of the museum. In the center of the pictures at the top of this page is the original concept drawing for the exterior of the building.

A committee working with Rena Kosersky developed ideas for the inside of addition. The north wall  would be patterned after the bays built into Mountaintop Historical Society in Haines Falls. Each of these would define different topics, displays, or exhibits. To demonstrate this, the committee used a wine carton as a model: the bottom defined the area and the sides represented the walls. Each of the 4 bays had a wall on one side and a set of glass-enclosed shelves holding artifacts on the other. There would be file cabinets and shelved for records in the reference area of the south wall, and a small enclosed area would represent a one room schoolhouse with exhibits, furniture, maps, and free pamphlets of historical documents. The picture on the right at the top of this page is the committee model of the interior. There are four bays on the left, a public  research area to the right, and a one-room schoolhouse to the right front.

One overlooked area of planning was the basement. The society planned access by stairs from the Natural Science Room. It would be used for displays of art, crafts, and other rotating displays. In this area, we should have been more specific as to what we wanted and the nature of storage and access.

We are currently asking for volunteers and content (text and photos) for each of these displays. Please contact Gerry Stoner if you have interesting content for any of these displays, or would like to work on an area of interest to you.

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