"Remembrances of Things Past..........40 Years in a Nutshell"

My head keeps spinning around and trying to figure out how to start saying things that will somehow bring what happened with the Silver City Museum into some kind of meaningful story.  The important thing for me is that i got to be included at age 22 into this idea that a handful of people here in town had been thinking about but had never quite got it together in a finally decision until the city announced that it was going to build a new fire station and that the present building would be torn down.  I was attending WNMU and majoring in Art and minoring in Geology (which meant i spent a lot of time in the Science Department).  I had also been in the Audubon Society here since i was in high school and went to many meetings of the Grant County Archeology Club.  All of these parts came together because there were people in each place who thought about a museum here. I don't think there were more than 20 people in the whole county who thought a museum was needed.  But because of who the people were..............and the fact that we had a super nice group of people on our City Council at that time........the spark of demolition of the fire house brought everyone together.   Lowell Cain was mayor and he was a friend of my parents and knew me and i guess thought i could do it (I didn't even know I could do it).  Dr. John Harlan was in the Science Department at the University and had been collecting historical photographs for many years.  Cecil Howard was my design and pottery instructor at the Art Department.  At some point we all came together to discuss the formation of the Silver City Museum and the Council liked the idea and gave us the half of the present building that was the Ailman House with the Fire Department still in the other half and $1,000 for our operating budget (which was my salary).   All i can remember is that Cecil and we borrowed a truck from somebody and started hauling things out of the upstairs and back rooms.  In order to have enough stuff to fill up the space we had to borrow from people in the area.   Mr and Mrs Arturo Ochletree in Gila had just moved from Maryland a few years before and had an extensive antique collection which comprised everything from early American clothing to historical maps of the West.