Valley's relics find home in Palmer

PALMER -- The Palmer Visitors' Center, having recently forgone its first-floor gift shop in favor of a museum featuring local artifacts and other memorabilia, is seeking to get off the ground through museum grant applications and calls for historical treasures from the Palmer community at large.

"Palmer's history, Palmer's story, needs a place to stay," said Geri McCann, an information specialist with the center.

The city of Palmer voted in March to turn the upper story of the building into an informative museum displaying artifacts from Palmer's earlier days. The basement of the center has always been a museum, but this action expanded the display into the main story as well.

The decision was due in part to anxieties from local businesses, concerned that the gift shop kept customers away from their own shops, said Gene Jansen, director of the Palmer Chamber of Commerce.

Today, all that is available for sale in the once merchandise-laden upper story of the center are a few simple postcards. The Palmer Chamber of Commerce had a 10-year contract with the center that expired last fall, whereupon the chamber decided it was time to rethink some aspects of its operation. Now, the center provides information and direction to tourists coming through the area in exchange for the lease of the building from the city.

This reform resulted in the formulation of a Colony museum on the upper story of the center featuring domestic, farming, industrial and other artifacts from Palmer's earlier days. Exhibits focusing on Independence Mine, Matanuska Maid and Palmer agriculture are paired with mushing tools and preserved wildlife in the form of furs and wall mountings. More items of interest, including numerous Native Alaska and Russian Orthodox relics, currently reside in the basement of the building, waiting to be properly displayed on the upper story.

The main problem the museum faces, McCann said, is that many of the original colonists and longtime residents are unaware that a site exists for the preservation of their memorabilia, which often wastes away in attics, basements and garages without receiving the attention it deserves.

"Our local history is vulnerable," McCann said. "It's in danger of being lost. And Palmer's history is just too valuable to lose."

The fledgling museum is still searching for grants in order to purchase acid-free and ultraviolet-filtering materials. A $10,000 museum grant is in the works now for conservation tools and a record-keeping system. The American Association for State and Local History is working with the new museum to obtain a professional assessment of the museum's needs in preparation for grant writing.

The Palmer museum will be networking with other local museums and historical facilities to further its project. "Our museums are not in competition with each other," McCann said.

The summer tour buses have recently started running from Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula north to Denali and the Interior, and Palmer's status as a stop along this line means that the downtown area of the city routinely experiences large influxes of tourists for brief periods of time. The most recent load, feeling rather peckish after the northward drive from Whittier, spilled into the nearby Gold Miner hotel and restaurant, overwhelming the single waitperson on duty.

"It's business as usual here with the tour buses," Jansen said. The center, he added, contains some examples of merchandise that can be found in the area, encouraging tourists to take their business to those locations.

"We see this as the continuation of our mission to send business back into the community," Jansen said. He added that, though the visitors' center no longer runs a commercial business per se, it actively works to point tourists in the direction of other Palmer vendors. Since the buses usually only stop in Palmer for a short time, however, the possibilities are limited. Jansen said he hopes travel companies will consider making the city a more major stop on their tour routes in the future.

"For them to value Palmer as a destination is a real breakthrough for the future of tourism here," McCann said. She added that the center is working with local businesses such as the Gold Miner and Vagabond Blues to help absorb the regular loads of tourists.

"We're seeking collective efforts from local businesses to cultivate a positive Alaska experience for these guests," she said. "Museums are married to commercial development."

In the future, McCann envisions partnerships between the center and local businesses on the order of charitable patronage or collaborative events and sponsored exhibits.

"If a community doesn't know where it's been, it doesn't know where it's going," she said.

Contact Daniel Spoth at daniel.spoth@frontiersman.com.