The Town of Edmond was established in 1889, and its museum in 1985
EDMOND, Okla. (KFOR) — Town history matters most when people start to see it slipping away.
Edmond History Museum Director Amy Stephens has witnessed the phenomenon again and again as citizens here donated old pictures and items ranging from huge electric hair curlers to neon hotel signs, even blue hippos.
She explains, "We get stuff in the mail, it walks in the door, or we get phone calls."
They all come to an old, rock structure on South Boulevard, once a storage building for the swords of war, now, for the past 40 years, a different type of repository for the plowshares of history.
"There are so many stories to tell," Stephens continues. "We are 136 years old, and you can't just tell the pioneer story."
Back in 1983, a committee got together to start thinking about the Land Run Centennial, about John Steen and his family being Edmond's first residents when it was a mere water and coal stop on the prairie.
"They were already starting to think about the Land Run Centennial."
They issued a charter in January of '84, then opened as a one-room museum in '85.
In 2007, one of the early teams of amateur historians, Quimby Enterline, talked about his wife signing him up to put things together.
"I bought you a membership today," he recalled. "I asked her where. She told me the museum. I told her we didn't have one. She told me they were going to build one."
Skip ahead 40 years from those small beginnings and the old armory turned museum is home to 43,000 artifacts, traveling displays, a genealogy office, and a constantly rotating wheel of exhibits.
Stephens says, "We try to get about 500 artifacts on display every year."
When the 179th Infantry moved out in 1972, the city stored lawn mowers and street equipment on the drill floor.
But for the past 40 years, the rocks placed by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 have formed the firm foundation of Edmond history, from namesake Edmond Burdick to John Steen, to Route 66 on the Mother Road to present day.
The Edmond History Museum is hosting a 40th birthday celebration on Saturday afternoon, January 18th, 2025, with a ribbon cutting and cake.
For more information, go to https://www.edmondhistory.org/
Great State is sponsored by True Sky Credit Union