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H. Earl Clack Museum holds grand reopening Saturday

Museum to expand through the coming years in its new, permanent home

After years of moving from location to location, the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum held a grand reopening in the former Griggs Printing Building Saturday, marking its first day open to the public in its new, perment location.

Saturday's grand reopening packed the museum's new location, which began with a ribbon cutting with the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce and an address by members of the museum's board and foundation board.

H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board Chair Lela Patera began the address, thanking everyone for coming and thanking her colleagues on the boards for their tireless work over the years, but particularly this past year, getting the new location ready, with many working every day to make the move happen.

"We're really proud of this, and we hope that you are proud also," Patera said.

She also thanked those beyond the board that helped the move, as well as Museum Manager Emily Mayer for making sure everything at the museum and the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump kept spinning as the move happened.

She said this grand reopening represents a great achievement, but said there is still plenty of work to be done to improve the space, and they plan to make major additions to the museum every three months or so, and anyone who has a mind to volunteer to help can get in touch with her.

Patera said the current setup features a tribute to two local photographers who died recently, Steve Helmbrecht and Rick Ervin, and more exhibits are sure to come.

H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation Chair Elaine Morse spoke after Patera and thanked some of the other people and groups who contributed to the move, including the Havre Lions Club, as well as Montana State University-Northern's plumbing program and football team for their help.

Morse said the museum also got a lot of help through grants private donations, which were especially helpful when abating the asbestos and lead-based paint in the building before completing the move.

"This is a real upgrade for us, this is now the permanent home of the Clack Museum," she said.

She said the museum will expand its exhibits over time, slowly making room for the artifacts they still have in storage, which will eventually fill the upper and lower floors of the building.

Morse said the museum is always looking for more local historic artifacts and encouraged anyone with such items to consider donating them.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson made a similar plea, saying he had some interesting artifacts of his own that he would have considered giving to the museum, but they were lost in a house fire.

Peterson said anyone with artifacts they are thinking of donating should also lay out their wishes in case they die, leaving loved ones with no idea of what their wishes were for their things.

Beyond the matter of artifact donation, he said he was incredibly happy with the move and praised the work of everyone who made it happen.

"It really couldn't have come at a better time," he said.

Morse said the museum's next big project is putting a private collection of Havre and Montana artifacts in the back room, which still needs a little work before it's ready.

Indeed, she said, this reopening, while it is a massive milestone for them, is really only the first step in their efforts to continue upgrading.

"It's not really a culmination, it's more of a rest area," she said.

Despite her focus on the work to come, Morse was very happy about this move after years of moves.

"This is wonderful," Morse said. " ... And it's not going anywhere."

A history of its own

In addition to its many moves, the museum has a storied history of its own.

In the 1960s, Hill County took over operation of the museum, which had been operated by the Havre Jaycees. With Turner Clack leaving a bequest for the museum in his will, it was named in honor of his father as the H. Earl Clack Museum. The foundation that supports the museum later added the name of H. Earl Clack's wife, Margaret Turner Clack.

The two were prominent members and supporters of the Havre community almost from its start. H. Earl Clack joined an older sister in Havre in 1903, before he turned 18 years old, the local history "Grits, Guts and Gusto" reports. That same year, he married Margaret Turner, daughter of a Baltimore doctor.

He started work as a hod carrier, "Grits" says, working for bricklayers building a new school, but soon started his own business in freight, expanded to open the first grain elevator in northern Montana and soon had a chain of elevators. He then expanded into the petroleum business at first as an agent for an oil company then developing his own business. Throughout his career, Clack opened chains of service stations, stores and hotels and owned housing units in many cities.

The two also were extremely active in Havre society and earned reputations as philanthropists.

The Clack family has been a strong supporter of the county museum since it started.

The museum originally was housed in a building on the Hill County Fairgrounds, now the Great Northern Fairgrounds, until the mid-1990s. The museum then moved into the former Havre post office, calling it the Havre Heritage Center.

The funding source for the purchase of the post office failed to produce enough revenue, and with a combination of the final balloon payment and work needed on the building taking its toll, the museum moved to a location in the Holiday Village Mall early last decade, later moving to the other end of the mall to its location near the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump, also administered by the county museum board.

The board and foundation began looking for a permanent space since it moved to the mall, and in 2013 purchased the building housing Griggs Printing with the understanding that the business could operate in the building as long as the owners desired.

The building itself has an extensive history. Built in the 1920s or earlier, it housed a dairy as well as the catalog showroom Anderson Wholesale before Jim and Bonita Griggs bought the building and moved Griggs Printing and Publishing into it in 1988.

Now, and for the foreseeable future, it will be the home of Havre's ever-expanding museum of local history.

 

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