Transcript

Location: 207 5th Ave. South

Well, we’re actually standing in front of the old Leath Furniture building and it was the Leath furniture building for years and then it sat vacant for many years. Charles and Marjorie Collins owned the building and they were actively trying to sell it when our group approached them to look at the building as a potential home of the Children’s Museum.

It was for purely selfish reasons that I started this project. I had lived in New Orleans where there was a really great children’s museum and my daughters and I went often and when we moved here it was winter and there wasn’t a lot to do with a three-year-old and a one-year-old so I really started it because I missed the one that we had liked and I thought this would be a great place for a children’s museum.

We were very early in the project and one of the gals that was involved, Judy Bouffler, knew the Collins pretty well and she called and asked if we could see the space and we were really just beginning the process of starting a children’s museum. We had just formed a board and were really just dreaming a little bit and driving around town, I think just to help ourselves envision the museum. So Judy asked if she could see the building and they gave us a tour and by the end of the tour they just handed us the key and said, we think this would be the perfect home, if you can use it, it’s yours.

By having a home the museum really gained momentum. Everyone in the community could envision that this was going to be a children’s museum. They could drive by and see our progress. It really kind of gave us that catapult that we needed.

My name is Anne Snow and I am the founder and Executive Director of the Children’s Museum.