The Bryan Museum celebrates a decade of telling Texas history

A decade ago, a museum dedicated to the American West and Texas history opened its doors in Galveston.

“When we start diving into Texas history and you think about the first bank, the first library,” said Bryan Museum Executive Director Melissa Murphy, “the list of firsts for Texas all started in Galveston.”

Operating out of a former orphanage on the Gulf Coast, the Bryan Museum has around 70,000 artifacts, documents, and pieces of art related to the history of the Lone Star State.

“We have the sword that captured Santa Anna,” said Murphy. “We have the map of the city of Houston that used to hang in the office of Sam Houston. We also have thousands of spurs that the museum owns.”

The Bryan was founded and is funded by J.P. Bryan, an oil and gas executive who’s been heavily involved in framing and preserving Texas history.

“He has been collecting his entire life, and when his collection kind of outgrew his offices in downtown Houston and his home, he knew he was at a place where it would be nice to house it all in one spot,” Murphy said.

The Bryan first opened in 2015 and according to Murphy, one of the big breakthroughs in the organization’s mission came a few years back with the development of its education department.

“Being on Galveston Island, there are certain school districts that just don’t come out this far in the greater Houston area and beyond,” she explained. “So we have developed programs that are traveling exhibitions, basically like mini museums in a box. We never want people to be limited by distance. And so we’re bringing history to them.”

To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the museum hosted a community day with pan-African American performances, mariachi bands and reenactors of the Texas Revolution.

“We were really able to just have a little bit of something for everybody through all of the performances,” said Murphy.

Over the next decade, the Bryan is looking to expand its presence in Galveston by adding immersive technology exhibits, an education space and hosting more lectures about Texas history and culture.

“We have big plans for the organization to have a full on-campus expansion and to be able to just offer more to the public,” Murphy said.

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