Palmer’s history and art museum nears 30,000 visitors for 2022, plans wide-ranging activities in 2023

It has been a good year for Palmer Museum of History and Art. Located on two acres of downtown land and open year-around, the museum was founded in 2005 to provide visitor services, curated historic displays and exhibits featuring local artists..

The museum had 26,500 visitors as of September 25, which makes it likely that the total will exceed 30,000 by the end of the year, according to an annual report made to Palmer’s city council in late October.

About 30,000 visitors is normal for a good year, and achieving that in 2022 is a signal that the pandemic’s toll on the visitor industry may have ended. The museum also brought in $35,000 in grant funding for new programs, collection supplies and exhibits as of the end of August, the report said.

The 2022 visitor season still had its challenges for Palmer. “Last year many buses, mainly Princess, were still not running, and many of those prospective bus travelers became independent travelers instead.

“Independent travelers are traveling on their own, without a tour guide. They typically have more schedule flexibility and are marketed to by visitor guides, web and social media ads and word-of-mouth recommendations,” the report said.

“Bus travelers are part of a tour group, such as Princess, Premier or Salmonberry. They typically have less schedule flexibility but more money to spend. We market directly to tour companies for this group to try and bring them to Palmer.

Partnership agreements are now being finalized with Princess Tours, Salmonberry Tours and Premier Alaska Tours to bring more buses to Palmer.

To develop more tourism, “we are pursuing funding to take the visitpalmer.com digital destination marketing resource we have been working on from a demo site to a usable resource,” the report said.

The museum operates with a board of six headed by Mari Jo Parks and a volunteer board of six including the president along with a full-time staff of two including Sam Dinges, executive director; Matthew Akers, Visitor Outreach Coordinator; and two part-time staff, Richard Estelle, the collections coordinator, and Dylainie Nathlich, a collections specialist.

During the year the museum coordinates a variety of activities including school art exhibits, events featuring local artists, book programs, and cultural events including members of the Chickaloon tribe doing traditional storytelling, beadwork and discussions on the traditional Ahtna language.

Bicycles are also rented during the summer, which encourages visitors to tour Palmer at a more leisurely pace.

Last summer, “we took over 1,000 visitors, students and community members on our historic walking tour, showing the history of the Matanuska Colony Project and more, including Palmer’s downtown historic district,” the annual report said.

“From savings and community donations, we developed and installed a topographic map of the Palmer area featuring place names in English, Athna and Dena’ina,” the indigenous languages of SouthCentral Alaska near the Mat-Su region.

The museum printed and distributed the 2022 Palmer Visitor Guide, “putting 30,000 copies in the hands of visitors around the state. “Over 50 Palmer businesses are listed and we added new maps, interpretive info and pages to the guide,” the report said.

The Palmer Lions Club donated $5,000 to create a traveling display case to go into school libraries around Palmer to teach the town’s history. “The case was manufactured locally and the first display will tell the story of dairy farming and Matanuska Maid.”

In 2023 the museum hopes to offer free summer art classes to 200 elementary and high school students and to do a pilot program to offer free art classes to adults, complimenting the classes for youths.

“History Storytime” will also be offered, with live readings by volunteers of books about Palmer and Alaska.

The museum has served as a visitor center for the community since the 1960s. The main building sits on land donated by Palmer resident Bill Hermann.

Besides Mari Jo Parks, the president, the museum, organized as a nonprofit, has Amber Lindstrom as Secretary; Margaret Adsit as Treasurer, and Dean Phillips, Pat Chesbro, Felicia Desimini, Penny McClain and Becky Oviatt as directors on the board.