The Thunder Bay Museum is located in

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. It is operated by the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, incorporated in 1972 as the successor to the Thunder Bay Historical Society. The Museum is affiliated with the Canadian Museums Association, the Canadian Heritage Information Network, the

Ontario Historical Society The Ontario Historical Society is a non-profit organization centred on the preservation of Ontario’s history. It is governed by an all-volunteer board of directors, and its members include individuals as well as historical institutions from across ...

, and

Virtual Museum of Canada The Digital Museums Canada (DMC; , ''MNC'') is a funding program in Canada "dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community," helping organizations to build digital capacity. Administered by the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) ...

History

The Thunder Bay Historical Society was founded October 2, 1908 at the instance of Barlow Cumberland, president of the

. Peter McKellar served as president of the Thunder Bay Historical Society from 1908 to 1923. Since 1994 the museum has been housed in the former Fort William

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, ...

and

court house A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English- ...

near Thunder Bay City Hall. The three-storey building, designed by architect Robert Mason, was erected in 1910 and is an example of

Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

architecture, with its two large

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

columns and pilasters.

Fund raising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

is under way to restore the cornice and other missing architectural elements. The interior of the building has been treated with complete renovations since 1994, including an overhaul of its HVAC system and the addition of a

wheelchair ramp A wheelchair ramp is an inclined plane installed in addition to or instead of stairs. Ramps permit wheelchair users, as well as people pushing strollers, carts, or other wheeled objects, to more easily access a building, or navigate between are ...

. An annex was enlarged and converted to a storage area for the collection. Recently a visible storage gallery was built in front of the annex to display vehicles and other large items in the museum's collection.

Collection

The first floor gallery features permanent exhibits on various aspects of local history. The second floor gallery is known as the James Murphy Room and is dedicated to meetings and programming, such as birthday parties and themed march & summer break camps for children. The third floor gallery features military and music exhibits, local and traveling exhibit space as well as a multipurpose room available for rentals. The museum collects objects of regional interest, such as dolls, pictures and furniture, and its collection includes a firetruck. The archives has 130 metres of linear records, 1900 maps and plans, 150,000 photographic images and a 2200 volume library.

Program

The Society produces an annual peer-reviewed journal entitled ''Papers & Records.'' It is also publishes a number of books annually on a variety of local and regional interest.

References

Raffo, Peter. “The Rocky road home: a hundred years in the life of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society.” Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society ''Papers and Records'' XXXVI (2008): 3-17.

External links

Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society
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