Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884

Old Stoney gets ready to open

The state fire marshal has given the nod and Old Stoney is about to become a hive of activity as its new occupants begin the process of moving in. This will mark the final leg of a long – and often arduous – journey to transform an old school into a modern cultural hub.

The fire marshal’s inspection was the last hurdle to achieve a certificate of occupancy. The project was dealt another blow a few months ago when the fire suppression system was deemed insufficient, which meant a new water line had to be brought to the building and associated hardware installed.

With that work done, the inspection was scheduled and everyone crossed their fingers, from the museum district that has spent years raising money to repurpose the school, to the volunteers who have worked for months to perfect elements of the interior, to the City of Sundance that sponsored the grant, to the contractors that fought groundwater, elevator issues and more to complete the rejuvenation.

Now, all that’s left is to occupy the building. This is the part Museum Director Rocky Courchaine has been looking forward to – but it’s going to take a little more elbow grease to complete.

“The archives I have in the museum are situated in the middle of the exhibits now and will be moved to the new shelf units,” he says. This is the case for all 7000 historical items that have been stored at the county museum – and that’s not including what’s on display. “It’s over 14,000 in total,” he says.

“Once I get all that moved, I can start taking my exhibits apart and all the walls apart, then bringing them over and setting them up over here,” Courchaine continues.

How to resituate all the exhibits has been planned out ahead of time, so it’s just a case of moving the items over and putting them where they belong, Courchaine says.

For the barn exhibit, for example, “I will take the barn doors off, take the railing off, take the walls out and move them over here, then pack my artifacts up and set them all up.”

Some exhibits will see changes, such as the gun cabinets. Courchaine says these will be repurposed to make them smaller to save room and display the items more clearly.

There’s a lot of work involved in moving, sorting and arranging 14,000 artifacts, so Courchaine is estimating it will take around two months for the museum to be ready for the public gaze.

The 1875 Gallery will be moving into Old Stoney concurrently.

“The gallery will probably be done before me,” Courchaine says. Located on the lower floor, the gallery’s outside access door can be used to allow it to open to the public again, but “the door to the museum will be locked until it’s done.”

The tenants of the offices on the lower level will also be able to move in as soon as occupancy is granted. One of the two main offices is confirmed as occupied, Courchaine says, and the second is almost certainly also taken.

“For the multi-use office area, we’ll be looking for people all the time,” he says.

The function room will also be available immediately for anything from sip n’ paint sessions to history and genealogy classes.

 
 
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