After a 38-year run, the Powers Museum closed its doors last year. The tiny museum in Carthage, Mo., featured period clothing and furniture, newspaper clippings, letters and photographs to represent life in this rural southwest Missouri town from 1870 to 1940.
Immediately upon deciding to close due to insurmountable budget issues, however, board members of the Powers Museum found themselves facing a new challenge: what to do with their collection.
That collection was largely the work of the late Marian Powers Winchester, who in 1981 left money to build a museum and an endowment to run it. But rising costs over the years meant that the money started to run out, says the museum’s last board president, Kavan Stull. Younger people “just weren’t interested in what a butter churn looks like or the type of shoes someone wore in 1900,” says Mr. Stull.
