LaRue Hot Springs museum opens at Homesteader

While it was a great weekend to be outside for Hot Springs’ Homesteader Days, many ventured inside on Saturday and Sunday for the grand opening of the LaRue Hot Springs Museum.

The grand opening occurred at 1 p.m. on Saturday, however people were invited to take a look around the museum before the actual opening ceremony began. The museum is filled with artifacts dating back to Hot Springs history, almost all of which were donated by people in the area who wanted to contribute to the museum.

Some of the artifacts include old Army and Navy uniforms from World War I and World War II. There are also post office boxes from the original post office, as well as a Native American teepee, which was built by Francis Stanger.

The museum is totally run by volunteers and admission is free, however they do offer memberships and the money collected from those will go entirely to the upkeep of the museum.

The grand opening ceremony began with a reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, which was led by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Norah Potts, president of the museum group, led the ceremony with a brief history of how the museum came to be.

“We have spent many years and many hours to get to this point and I can’t believe it, but it actually is here,” Potts said. “It was over three years ago when my good friend Joan Anderson said, ‘gee, we need a museum.’”

Potts said they began having meetings over three years ago and they found that there were about 12 people who were really dedicated in making this a reality. In Sept. 2006, the LaRue family, who had been part of the original meetings, decided they wanted to support the museum and they would like to contribute to the building of the museum.

The LaRues gave two donations, one was a donation of money to begin building the actual museum and the other was a gift of two acres of land, where the actual museum resides.

The museum group has also purchased a cabin and they hope that within the next year they can raise enough money to have a homesteader cabin, according to Potts.

In Sept. 2007, the museum was granted tax exempt status, also known as their 501C3. “We had a completed shell of a museum and we had our nonprofit status, so we had accomplished an awful lot by 2007,” Potts said.

During the same period, a bill was crafted and introduced into state legislature by state Sen. Jim Elliot, a Democratic representative from Senate District 7. This will give the museum the ability to be in a museum district and to be included in a tax and this tax would go to help keep the building running since it is not for profit, Elliot said.

Elliot said he was very proud to have carried the bill about the museum district and that the sense of community in Hot Springs is amazing. “When you talk about community and community spirit, you have to talk about Hot Springs,” he said.

Elliot went on to say that he felt Hot Springs was a very special place in how everyone in the community pulled together and how much they care about their heritage and each other. He ended with a joke, saying that he really didn’t have a whole lot to do with the museum, but if anyone was ever taxed they knew who to blame.

“All through the past winter and spring we have been working to get the inside of the museum done,” Potts said. “We’re hoping to bring more outdoor equipment to the museum in the next year to have an outdoor site to show the importance of the agricultural equipment needed in the area.”

County Commissioner Gail Patton attended the event with his wife Jean and he talked about the importance of having this museum in the area. “We’ve gotten to where we were losing our history and I realized I’m the old guy now, I remember the history and the stories, and we’re trying to gather as much as we can as fast as we can,” he said. “The actual display is just a piece of stuff, the story and how it was used and why it was used and how it got there, that’s the thing we want.”

State Representative for District 13, Pat Ingraham, has also been a part of the museum process since the beginning. “Since I did start when this first began, it has been pretty exciting to watch it become a reality and this reality is a labor of love,” she said. “It is not about making milestones, it’s about the hearts of the people in this community and it is absolutely amazing and you all have done a wonderful job.”

Potts ended the ceremony by speaking to what she hoped the museum could accomplish. “We wish to preserve and portray the life on the reservation prior to homesteaders, and we also want to portray the life since homesteaders, so hopefully this museum will become as much a historical museum, as much as a pathway for the young people in the community to learn about the past and build a pathway to the future,” she said. “It is with great honor and great pleasure that I want to welcome you to our museum and I want to thank you all again who have helped with your hearts and souls to get this up and running, it has been an absolute pleasure to have been a part of this.”

Potts then introduced Harold and Betty LaRue as the ceremonial ribbon cutters for the ceremony. Both thanked Potts for her hard work and said they knew this could’ve never happened had it not been for her vision. “Thank you so much for all you have done,” Betty said.

After the ribbon was cut and the museum was finally open, the crowd of about 60 filed in for refreshments as well as to take in the history of Hot Springs with their own eyes.

The LaRue Hot Springs museum will be open Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. For more information call 741-5665.