"From Firehouse to Museum: the founding of the Silver City Museum," a community panel discussion, will be held in the Silver City Museum Annex, 302 West Broadway, Silver City, NM, Thursday, July 20, 2017, noon to 1 p.m.
The first in a series of discussions, come to hear about the early days of the Museum and contribute your own stories. Did you know that the Silver City Museum opened to the public in 1967 and shared space with the fire department its first three years? Panelists for our inaugural July panel will be Museum co-founder Cecil Howard, former Museum Director Susan Berry, and retired Fire Chief Daniel Vasquez.
To celebrate the Silver City Museum's 50th Anniversary, the Museum is featuring a historical exhibition that not only focuses on the Museum's history but more broadly on the time and place of its founding. To enrich and expand the scope of the exhibition's content, we have five community panel discussions and a digital story-telling workshop planned. The panel discussions are closely related to the vignettes and subjects represented in the exhibition.
The exhibition demonstrates how the Silver City Museum and the community have changed over 50 years. The exhibition and programs are designed to allow visitors and event attendees see how readdressing the world as it was can lead to a new understanding of the present. Visitors and program attendees will have the opportunity to appreciate how far the Museum and the community have come in the last 50 years.
Each panel will feature speakers talking about their own experiences. Members of the community will be the experts and audience members are encouraged to share their own stories. This will be an opportunity to include more stories and points of view; to engage and be part of the larger conversation. These events are free and open to the public.
The exhibition 50 Years Ago in Silver City, the digital storytelling listening event, and the series of community panels are supported in part by a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council.
The Silver City Museum creates opportunities for residents and visitors to explore, understand, and celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage of southwestern New Mexico by collecting, preserving, researching, and interpreting the region's unique history. For more information, please contact the museum at (575) 538-5921,
