Sept. 14, 2015
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The 11th annual Smithsonian magazine Museum Day will take place on Saturday, Sept. 26. Museums around the country are participating by mirroring the Smithsonian Institution’s DC-based facilities, which have free entry every day, and offering visitors free admission to their respective museums with a special Museum Day ticket. The West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s (WVDCH) four museum sites also will be participating. Since the WVDCH museums are always free, the West Virginia State Museum, West Virginia Independence Hall, Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex and Museum in the Park will offer special activities to commemorate the day. All special activities will be free and open to the public. The hours for all four museums are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The State Museum at the Culture Center in Charleston will have two new exhibits on display and family-friendly activities available in the museum education rooms. The West Virginia Diversifying Perspectives juried art exhibition is located on the balcony gallery and celebrates the upcoming National Disability Employment Awareness Month in Oct., and the Mountain Artisans of West Virginia exhibit is on display in the theater lobby. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the education lab, guests can play a family pub-style trivia game that will test one’s knowledge of West Virginia history. In the education media center, a West Virginia Documentary Film Festival will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Independence Hall (WVIH) in Wheeling has added a new addition to the grounds. A statue of the governor of the Reorganized Government of Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont, is now on display. The sculptor is Gareth Curtis of Montana. Also available throughout the day, WVIH is providing free living-history guided tours of the museum led by “Governor Pierpont.”
Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville will be offering outdoor activities along with films on Archaeology in the film room. “Festive Fall Foliage” is one of the activities offered where guests can create a colorful leaf using special color diffusing paper. Another activity provides a printout titled “Can You Find Me?” with which visitors are invited to head out to the garden and “check off” each item they find from the “interpretive garden checklist.”
Museum in the Park at Chief Logan State Park in Logan is inviting guests to view the exhibition Railroads and Coal in Southern West Virginia. Throughout the day, education programs of the frontier days also will be available.
Other museums around the state are participating in Smithsonian Museum Day and accepting Museum Day Live! tickets for free entry. The list includes The Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston, Arthurdale New Deal Homestead Museum in Arthurdale, Anna Jarvis Birthplace in Grafton, Huntington Museum of Art and Heritage Farm Museum and Village in Huntington, and Jefferson County Museum in Charles Town. For more information about these museums and to download a ticket for Smithsonian magazine Museum Day, visit http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History is an agency within the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts with Kay Goodwin, Cabinet Secretary. The division, led by Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith, brings together the past, present and future through programs and services focusing on archives and history, arts, historic preservation and museums. For more information about the division’s programs, events and sites, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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