The Brigham City Museum of Art & History, also known as the BCMG or, formerly, the Brigham City Museum-Gallery, is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

and

history museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

in Brigham City, Utah. The museum is a department of Brigham City Corporation (i.e., the City), but also has a non-profit foundation, the Box Elder Museum Foundation, Inc.

History

The museum opened in 1970, in the Brigham City Community Center building. The building was planned to be a community center, but plans were underway to include a museum in the basement portion of the museum before it opened. In 1969 a precursor to the museum was briefly open on Main Street, celebrating the centennial of the completion of the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

. In the early years, exhibitions changed monthly and included a wide variety of exhibitions, generally drawn from personal collections of board members or friends of the museum. Exhibition areas included art, history, and natural history. In 2009, a satellite museum, the Box Elder Museum of Natural History, opened in the King building, and moved to the Hervin Bunderson Center in 2010. In 2014, the museum won the

American Association for State and Local History The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is a non-profit association for state and local history, with a primary focus on history professionals, history volunteers, museums, historical societies, and other history-related organi ...

Leadership in History Award of Merit for the project ''Outside the Homeland: The Intermountain Indian School.'' The project included a 2012 exhibition of the same name, an online version of the exhibition, oral histories with former students of the school, and public programs on the school.

Collections

The museum's permanent collections include artifacts, photographs, and documents related to the pioneer settlement of Brigham City and Shoshone occupations in the area (including that of the

Washakie Washakie (1804/1810 – February 20, 1900) was a prominent leader of the Shoshone people during the mid-19th century. He was first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper, Osborne Russell. In 1851, at the urging o ...

), as well as historical items from throughout Box Elder County from settlement to the present. The museum also has a collection of fine art, including works by a variety of Utah artists. Some of the collections have been digitized and are available online
Brigham City Museum Collections

Special exhibits

The museum hosts a variety of temporary exhibits, each lasting 4–12 weeks. These include temporary exhibits curated by the museum's staff, as well as traveling exhibits sourced through other museums or organizations (such as NEH on the RoadFor instance, "Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity" http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700027040/Art-galleries-and-exhibitions-in-Utah.html?pg=all accessed 12/21/2016. Also Spirited. See "Living history: Prohibition was ‘godsend’ for some Utahns, inconvenience for others" Deseret News February 11, 2016 http://www.sltrib.com/home/3528910-155/living-history-prohibition-was-godsend-for or SITES). Previous exhibits have included displays of works by various Utah artists, including Minerva Teichert, Jim Stettler, and others, as well as Earth From Space (via SITES). Each summer, the museum curates a quilt exhibit with quilts from throughout the world, with featured quilters from all over.

Programs

Programs have varied over the years, but include a historic home tour, special tours for schools, scout groups, etc.,

References

External links