SIGNS & SCENES EXHIBIT OPENS AT FINNEY COUNTY MUSEUM
Finney County Historical Society
Visitors to the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City can take a short trip down Memory Lane through a small new exhibit that opened today in the Front Door Gallery.
The exhibit, which will remain on display until Thanksgiving, is entitled “Signs and Scenes…Images and Iconography from Finney County’s History.” It features nine signs, posters, plaques or other original images from the early 20th Century and various locations in the Garden City area. All are accompanied by text outlining their history and several are flanked by photographs of the buildings where the signs were located.
The artifacts range in size from a pair of 11 by 14-inch promotional posters used at the Woolworth lunch counter on Main Street during the 1960s to a 25 square-foot mural that hung for more than 50 years inside Garden City’s railroad depot.
The display also incorporates painted signs from the long-gone Stone Hotel, Hutchison Elementary School and Gardendale public housing complex, as well as the still-standing Sabine Hall, some spanning eight feet in length.
The Front Door Gallery is a small space just inside the museum’s main entrance where exhibits change repeatedly throughout the year. Visitation hours run from 1 to 5 p.m. seven days weekly and admission is free. More than a dozen additional exhibits are also in place, ranging from “True Crime” and “The Santa Fe Trail” to “Celebrate Kansas” and “Spirit of the Plains.”
The Museum is located at 403 S. Fourth in Garden City’s Finnup Park, adjacent to the pedestrian entrance at Lee Richardson Zoo. In addition to the various displays, the museum operates a gift shop stocking items representative of local and area history and culture, as well as items created by Western Kansas artists and artisans.
The new exhibit precedes the museum’s annual holiday exhibit in the Front Door Gallery and follows a pair of separate displays marking 100 years since the conclusion of World War I and the founding of Garden City Community College. Information is available at 620-272-3664.
