What does it take to turn a blah beige handball wall into a work of art? A vision, a few gallons of paint and the help of some talented local artists. Voila, a few months later, the Museum can now boast that we have the spiffiest spot in town for a special photo op right outside our front doors.
The project was conceived of by our curator and approved by the board but the real work was done by the artists. The art teacher at Patagonia Union High School led the way supported by the director of the Patagonia Creative Arts Association and a band of volunteers.
As a reminder, the Museum is open from 2 to 4 Thursdays – Saturday but the photo op in the front yard is available anytime.
The literal reference is tied to the completion of the first phase of one of the big interior projects. We have new lights! The fluorescent lighting in the hallway has been replaced by the 2021 version of the lights that hung in the building back in 1914. Pretty slick, wouldn’t you agree?
The figurative reference is tied to the fact that the lights are on because our doors are open. We are once again welcoming visitors from 2 – 4 Thursdays – Saturdays. And yes, the board and the volunteers are very happy about that fact.
While the doors were closed, the curating team was hard at work creating new exhibits for the public to enjoy. Thanks to the generosity of the Brent Bowden estate, the Museum is the proud owner of the candy counter from the store that stood at the corner of 3rd and McKeown in the ’20s. Granted we haven’t stocked it with Baby Ruth bars, Chuckles or candy cigarettes, but we think it looks perfect displaying an assortment of non-edible items that were likely for sale back in the day.
There are still a number of items on the “to do” list including raising funds for those cool lights in the four exhibit rooms plus the construction of the eagerly anticipated ADA ramp but in the meantime, please stop by when you’re in the area to see what we’ve been up to.
We’re managing to stay busy. In fact, the Museum’s doors being temporarily shuttered has provided our curators with the perfect excuse to rearrange. All in the spirit of creating new “old” displays for our patrons to enjoy in the future.
Patagonia is located in mining country so we’ve added new artifacts to those exhibits that are anchored by a huge mineral display case that is on long-term loan from the Cypress Mines Corporation.
We’ve recreated a turn of the century classroom because the building the Museum is housed in was the longest in-contiguous-use elementary school in the state at the time it closed. Serving the community from 1914 – 2014 is quite impressive, don’t you agree?
Small town commercial enterprises deserve mention so we’re currently featuring a scaled-down version of A.S. Henderson’s general store, as well as some cool old surveying tools and signage from the Bob Lennon collection.
In fact, there is so much that we want to share with the public that the board approved the conversion of the classroom that had been used as a meeting room into a public display area. The curator’s plans for that space include updated exhibits featuring the trades that have made Patagonia a thriving community over the past 100+ years.
Carolina and Hannah, the hard-working young women who are the current student docents, helped us with the first new exhibit, a tribute to the medical community in Patagonia. There’s no doubt that Dr. Delmar Mock is is the most well-known and beloved medical professional having served the area for 38 years. Affectionately known as “Doc Mock”, the town named a large portion of its park system in his honor. That said, it’s interesting to note that the original doctor in town was a woman, Dr. Eva Stevens Henderson, who obtained her medical degree in 1902. The story of women in the health care field in Patagonia continued with locally born Carolina Valenzuela Montoya who was Santa Cruz County’s first public health nurse. The family healthcare clinic in town was originally named after her, another tribute to the role of professional women in the wild west.
That’s a sampling of what we’ve been up to while our doors are closed. Stay tuned for updates as our curators continue the work of making old things seem new again.
Reprinted from the National Votes for Women Trail Newsletter Dec. 2020:
In November of 1912, Arizona made history by becoming one of only a few states in the U.S. to pass a suffrage amendment to the state constitution. It reads as follows:
The rights of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the state, or any political division or municipality thereof, on account of sex, and the right to register, to vote and to hold office under any law now in effect, or which may hereafter be enacted, is hereby extended to, and conferred upon males and females alike.
This new amendment provided women in Arizona the right to vote and to hold public office. Not surprisingly, women across the state were eager to exercise this new freedom and registered to vote. In 1915 the Patagonia public schoolhouse served as a voting location for many citizens including Mexican American women like Mary Kane and Amalia Valenzuela.
Only a short time later, women across the United States were given the right to right to vote with the passage and subsequent ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920.
The Patagonia Museum thanks The National Votes for Women Trail and The William G. Pomeroy Foundation for commemorating this important event.
FLASH FORWARD TO THE PRESENT DAY:
Rylee’s great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Kane, was one of the women who exercised her right to vote at the schoolhouse in 1915. Based on the smile on her face, we won’t be surprised to see Rylee do something special in her life as well.
The National Votes for Women Trail and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation have honored the Patagonia Museum by sponsoring a suffrage sign marker that will be displayed on the grounds of the 1914 Grammar School. In 1915, a special election was held in Santa Cruz County and the Grammar School was the voting site for the Patagonia community. At the time there were at least 31 women registered to vote in Patagonia. The suffrage sign will honor these women and Amalia Valenzuela and Mary Kane in particular, as Hispanic women who pursued their right to vote at a time when it was unacceptable in much of the country.
The 1913 Official Register of Electors listing Mary Kane as one of six registered voters in Crittenden.
A brief ceremony to celebrate this suffrage sign marker will take place along with our annual meeting on Saturday, January 23, 2021, at 10:30 am, on the grounds of our museum facility, 100 School Street. Mary Melcher who received her Ph.D from Arizona State University in American History, will be our guest speaker. Mary is an oral historian, consultant, curator, historian, author and the driving force who made this recognition possible.
The board of trustees sends a heartfelt thank you to Arizona Humanities for the grant recently awarded to the Patagonia Museum. Funding for this grant was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
The monies will be used to offset our operating expenses that would normally be covered by our fundraising efforts.
In case you are unfamiliar with their work, Arizona Humanities is a statewide 501C3 that has supported public programs that promote understanding of the human experience with cultural, educational, and nonprofit organizations across Arizona since 1973. You can find more about them on their website.
