The University Museum is one of three campus buildings that will benefit from the $6 million in funding of General Obligation Bond C is approved by voters on November 4.
About $3.8 million will be used to install climate control (humidity/ventilation/air conditioning/heating) and fire suppression systems and for upgrades to the existing security system. Climatic control and fire suppressions are critical to improving environmental conditions to enhance visitor learning and researcher experiences and collections preservation, ensuring visitor and staff safety, and reducing potential loss of or damage to irreplaceable objects and a historic structure that are part of our collective history.
“The visitor experience will be dramatically improved with these important upgrades,” said Dr. Cynthia Ann Bettison, University Museum Director. “We are excited that it will be air conditioned and properly heated for the first time in the building’s nearly 100 year history.”
Additional work that may be funded includes the upgrading of exterior spaces, ADA accessibility, exhibition space, and complete renovation and preservation of historic features such as original gymnasium-grade maple wood floors.
Overall Bond C funding will enhance and expand the visitor learning experience at Western New Mexico University Museum by providing newly designed exhibitions and a visible artifact collection area increasing accessibility to collections while furnishing state-of-the-art research and classroom facilities, a non-lending on-site archaeology library, and archives to foster research, teaching and learning by students, visitors, and visiting scholars.
Equally important, the proposed project will ensure the preservation of significant artifacts and documents from New Mexico’s and America’s prehistoric and historic past for future generations. One of these collections is the NAN Ranch Collection—the largest and most comprehensive collection of prehistoric Mimbres materials scientifically collected from a single Mimbres site.
The WNMU Museum is housed in historic Fleming Hall, built in 1916-1918 to serve as the university’s basketball gymnasium and ‘state-of-the-art’ science building. In the past 98 years a number of famous Silver City individuals have worked in the building, including O.T. Snodgrass, a WNMU mathematics professor who was the first to write about WNMU Museum’s Eisele Collection of Mimbres Pottery and Artifacts in his book Realistic Art and Times of the Mimbres Indian (1977); Jesse Bingaman, WNMU professor of chemistry and late father of former New Mexico U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman; and Lucille Merriweather Gray, former librarian and instrumental in encouraging Richard C. Eisele to let a group of preservation minded Silver City citizens, civic groups, and businesses purchase his artifacts in the early 1940s.
After years of serving as a gymnasium and science hall, then as the campus library followed by Expressive Arts and a year of closure, Fleming Hall became Western New Mexico University Museum on January 9, 1973 with the gift of the Eisele Collection of Pottery and Artifacts (mainly Mimbres materials).
Funding from Bond C will fund the transformation of Fleming Hall into a world-class museum while maintaining the historic integrity of the building and restoring it to its original glory showcasing our collective commitment to preserving the past while providing unique learning opportunities.