The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon has been closed for almost a year now.
The museum is a beloved institution, housed on the campus of West Texas A&M University. But the building itself has major fire code violations and a backlog of needed repairs.
The future of both the building and the roughly 2 million artifacts it holds is unclear for the institution.
Jackie Kingston, editor and CEO of the Amarillo Tribune, recently hosted a roundtable on the museum. She spoke to the Texas Standard about its options going forward. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: For folks who haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Panhandle Plains Museum, can you give us a sense of why it’s been so valuable to the region?
Jackie Kingston: Absolutely. The Panhandle Plains Historical Museum is our history, but it’s also Texas’ history.
There are more than two million artifacts housed within the museum, and the research opportunities not only for students, for faculty, but just the exhibits that the public gets to see that are on display are always really meaningful and share the story of how we got but our ancient ties to the state and and how people got here.
So it’s a great resource for people not only here in our region, but around the world.
We hosted a public discussion recently with some of the main players in the saga, including Walter Wendler, the president of West Texas A&M, and members of the Panhandle Plains Historical Society. Did those conversations offer any clues to the museum’s future?
You know, it did, and the thing that Dr. Wendler and the society all agree on, representatives from every stakeholder involved with this process, is how complex it is. There is not a clear-cut solution to reopening the museum.
But one of the things that we did learn during our event was that Dr. Wendler is interested in reopening the Museum on WT’s campus. It just can’t be in the same way that it has been.
The museum spans multiple different buildings that have been retrofitted over the years – many years that the museum has been on campus to facilitate, to accommodate the artifacts, to accommodate some of the displays, the research spaces that are needed. And some of those buildings are in the worst disrepair and they will not reopen.
But Pioneer Hall, which is the flagship, the massive hall that you walk into… It’s a landmark. It’s gorgeous. That will stay on campus. And they’re interested in figuring out how to modify the museum’s artifacts to focus the collection and to find a way to reopen.
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Now, I’m really curious about this, because I thought the issue was funding. The issue was West Texas A&M cannot repair and house this museum. But you’re saying that they are interested in both things, in putting the money towards making this building work and housing the museum again.
But do they have a plan as to how they’re going to make that happen?
There are lots of different avenues that the administration at the WT, the president and others, and the TAMU system and Glenn Hegar, who’s in charge of the system now, are pursuing.
Some of that includes funding from the state Legislature, which would have to be approved in the next few months as something that is interesting to the state’s Legislature to take on in the next session. So that’s an option.
A capital campaign, raising the funds that are needed to rebuild a museum is also an option and keeping the museum where it is or moving it all together, making off-site storage and then finding a new place for the museum to be… All of that takes various levels of funding and various input from various parties.
So we hope to check back with them in the next few months and see if they’ve made progress. But all of these parties are working together and communicating to see how this can move forward.
In the meantime, what’s been happening with all of these precious artifacts? I mean, have the doors been locked and things have just been sitting in there gathering dust or have they been moved to a more secure location?
Artifacts are still where they are and have been on campus. The staff are still able to work in the museum. So it’s not open to the public, but some research is being done and the staff members are still there caring for the artifacts as they always have.
That’s our understanding from all the parties involved. They agree on that. And so the artifacts are safe. They’re there in those safer parts of the museum, they have been moved.
Now that they don’t have public spaces and public displays, they’ve got more room in these newer buildings. So the artifacts have been moved to those places, but they are still onsite there at the museum.
And that big oil rig, though… That was being taken down I think?
There were talks about taking the derrick down, but it is still standing and it’s still part of the hall and you can still see it on the avenue that it faces.
