The Park City Museum has re-opened to visitors with COVID-19 distancing protocols in place. With the closure in mid-March, the staff and volunteers have been working on many projects including making the facility safe to welcome back the public.
Park City Museum Executive Director Sandra Morrison says they are open Friday’s through Sundays, 11 to 5. Admissions will be timed with an effort to keep groups together with visitors following one-way directional guidelines. As summer traffic increases, she says they plan to add additional days to the schedule.
“You know, most of our visitors come in off the street so you can call and make a reservation, but pretty much everybody so far has just walked in and we've been able to accommodate them here.”
Shutting the Park City Museum to visitors has financially impacted the non-profit. Museum store and ticket sales represent about 20% of their revenues.
“And the Board of Trustees of course is very conservative and so we did have some cash reserves that we've been working from. In the last three months I've applied for different 16 different grant applications.”
Through the months of COVID-19 shutdown, they’ve continued to process donations of artifacts.
“Being a museum and a collecting institution, you know, that doesn’t ever stop. We’ve spent our time moving forward and continuing to process the donations of antiques and archives. then also spent the time doing really deep cleaning of the museum and the store and doing a lot of the maintenance that we always need to do after a busy winter.”
Photographer Kendall Webb moved to Park City in the 40’s and opened a photo shop on Main Street which closed in the 70’s. Morrison says they offer historical lectures on-line and access to thousands of his images through the Mountain West Digital Library.
Three different lectures available on our website that people can watch from the comfort of their homes, or our images from the Kendall Webb collection online. They’re hosted at the Mountain West Digital Library website.
In addition to the COVID-19 preparedness, Morrison says they’ve cleaned up the Glenwood Cemetery, painted the fence and will continue work on stabilizing the historic headstones.
“Last fall, we worked on the largest. Sixty headstones were stabilized out of about 600 in the Cemetery. A Texas cemetery restoration company is coming back at the beginning of July and will stay another month thanks to Rob Sletten and Identity Properties who put them up in a condominium across the street and so they will continue on the stabilization effort.”
A link to the Park City Museum can be found here. You can see images in the Mountain West Digital Library here.
Museum hours are 11 to 5, Friday through Sunday.
High risk patrons may enjoy the museum from 10am to 11am by appointment. Call 435-649-7457 ext 136
