Locked away in storage since last spring, the collection of the Riverside Historical Museum is beginning to arrive back home. The first shipment of archival boxes, placed in storage when restoration on the historic water tower and adjacent well houses began last April, was slated to be shipped to the museum yesterday.
A second shipment is expected Jan. 3, said Suzanne Bartholomew, chairperson of the Riverside Historical Commission, which operates the museum. In all, Historical Commission members will reprocess some 350 archival boxes full of artifacts, not including the museum’s collection of library books and rare books.
In addition, commission members will begin moving back some 25 boxes that hold the museum’s Riverside Structure File, which includes historical information on every building in the village.
“Having never done this before, I don’t have an idea of how long this will take,” Bartholomew said. “I think it’ll take most of January to get resettled. I hope the museum will be open and functioning by February, but that’s just off the top of my head.”
The museum is located in the east well house on the water tower campus in Centennial Park, at Longcommon Road and Forest Avenue in downtown Riverside. During the water tower restoration process, work crews also repaired the museum’s roof and installed a new air-handling system.
Crews are currently finishing work on the west well house, which is destined to become a new exhibit gallery for the Riverside Historical Museum. Completion of exterior restoration to the west well house was delayed late in the summer, when the village discovered its slate roof had to be completely replaced at a cost of approximately $100,000.
The interior of the well house is not yet ready for occupation, however. According to Bartholomew, the well house floor will have to be completely dug up and reinstalled. In addition, the structure will have to be outfitted with new electrical service, lighting and a heating/air-conditioning system.
But, Bartholomew added, the original beadboard siding, which covers not only the interior walls but the ceiling of the well house, will remain intact. The east well house also once had the interior beadboard paneling. That was torn out when the east well house was remodeled in the late 1970s.
The renovation of the west well house interior will be funded by a $75,000 state capital improvements grant the village received from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity with the help of State Rep. Calvin Giles (D-8th).
Bartholomew hoped the west well house interior renovation could be completed by March, which is when the museum expects to receive back one of its most prized artifacts, a chandelier from the Louis Sullivan-designed Babson House, demolished in 1960.
The chandelier has been on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago since last spring, and will become part of the permanent collection, along with the original Frederick Law Olmsted/Calvert Vaux plan of Riverside, when the west well house gallery opens.
“The well house will be the permanent and rotating exhibit gallery for the museum,” Bartholomew said. “It will be the first opportunity for residents and non-residents to actually see items from our collection.”
Some of the items that will appear on display when the new exhibit spaces opens, Bartholomew said, will be from the museum’s textile collection, which includes the Grand Army of the Republic uniform worn by Riverside resident Chandler B. Beach during the Civil War.
Beach also served as warden of the Riverside Presbyterian Church for 40 years and was a publisher who wrote the first children’s encyclopedia, which eventually grew into the Compton’s Encyclopedia.
Previously, artifacts such as Beach’s uniform were under lock and key in the east well house, which had no room for rotating exhibits. The Riverside Historical Society, a precursor to the Historical Commission, began storing items in the east well house in 1969. The first display of any kind at the museum was a 1975 photo exhibit, according to Bartholomew.
The museum will continue to be staffed by volunteers from the Historical Commission, although village trustees did approve $10,000 to hire an archivist in 2006 to help manage the collection. Trustees voted down the creation of a paid museum director position.
