The Springfield History Museum has been under renovation since Jan. 1, 2026. The museum has spent the last six months making the space more accessible and making the exhibits mobile, allowing for more flexibility for their future programs.
Alongside the new renovations, the museum has had time to refresh and re-catalog more than 300 artifacts. The different artifacts need varying levels of care. The museum’s curator, Maddi McGraw, said the time off has allowed them to give the artifacts “a spa day.”
They’ve also added a new exhibit that features artifacts from the people, movements and cultures that shaped agriculture in the Willamette Valley. The exhibit is a collaboration with community historians, Nancy Bray and Herb Everett, who donated a majority of the exhibit's contents.
The exhibit shows off the diversity of farm workers in the valley from pre-colonization to the present, showing indigenous, Latinx, Filipino and other types of farm laborers.
McGraw said Springfield has many connections to national and worldwide events, and the museum is a great place to learn about them:
“It's a place for people to celebrate the good and the bad, and the messy and everything else in between.” McGraw said.
The museum will reopen on Friday July, 10 at 10 a.m. Admission to the museum is always free and there will be refreshments and live music at the reopening.
