Boalsburg Heritage Museum Renovations Build on the Past While Looking to the Future

By Grace Bradley | Centre County Report

The Boalsburg Heritage Museum aims to bring the rich history of the village to the community, but like many other places, COVID-19 has caused hard times.

According to a survey by the American Alliance of Museums, one-third of museums are shutting down for good because of the effects of the pandemic, but that’s not happening to the Heritage Museum, 304 E. Main St.

Museum Curator Dave Gonzales, who previously was executive director of the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, decided to take this time to revamp the museum, updating it from its 1982 look to 2020.

‘I want this to be a viable, working, strong structure here, like my mother would have intended it,’ said Heritage Museum President Elizabeth Ritter, whose mother was one of the people who started the museum in the 1980s.

Ritter and Gonzales hope to spread the energy out to the community.

‘This should not just be a repository for dusty artifacts,’ Ritter said. ‘We also want to be outward-focused and out into the community and be relevant to the community.’

One way they did this was allowing a struggling yoga business to teach classes on the museum grounds.

Gonzales, meanwhile, said it’s important for the museum to delve deep into the area’s history and keep it alive.

‘The story should not just begin ‘Oh, the colonists got here and created Boalsburg,” Gonzales said. ‘We’re taking this tour back to the geology of this area, when this landscape created, to the Native Americans that were here and then looking forward, so there’s a complete story.’

The couple is grateful the museum is privately owned by a nonprofit organization and for their dedicated volunteers as they look forward.

‘In a very dark time, we have a very bright future here,’ Ritter said. ‘And our future is not inward-looking; it’s outward-looking to this community, and that ‘s what we’re using this time for.