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Moab Museum: Sharing history’s local stories
SHARING HISTORY'S LOCAL STORIES
A RENOVATED MOAB MUSEUM REOPENS WITH NEW STAFF AND FASCINATING EXHIBITS
Written by Sharon Sullivan
Responding to community inquiries is one of Tara Beresh’s many responsibilities as the first-ever curatorial and collections manager at Moab Museum. In June, Beresh helped a man who sought information about the venerable Apache Motel he had recently purchased. This summer, she also assisted a National Park Service Ranger with research and with finding photos for an interpretive talk he planned to give.
Moab Museum, at 118 E. Center St., reopened June 1 after being closed for nearly three years for renovation and a redesign of its exhibition space – a closure that was extended due to the pandemic. Staff made good use of that time, however, by expanding its website offerings, conducting hiring, and adopting new “best practices” for running a museum.
Operating at a higher level of professional standards opens the door to the sharing of more exhibits from across the nation. “I can contact a curator in Washington DC or Chicago and express interest in curating an exhibit on Native Americans who were in Mill Creek Canyon during ancestral times,” says 37-year-old Beresh. “We now have the potential to borrow artifacts that left our community long ago.”
The museum’s fresh interior is a bright, clean, well-lit space. Its open floorplan contrasts with the previously more compartmentalized spaces of the museum. During the construction, a staircase was also relocated to provide additional room, and design elements were incorporated into the walls and elsewhere that give staff the ability to make creative changes to the way items are exhibited in the future. “We think the redesigned space is dynamic and exciting, and we are excited about the possibilities ahead of us,” says community relations officer Mary Langworthy.
The museum’s current temporary exhibit “The Transcontinental Railroad” comprises two collections from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums – “A World Transformed: The Transcontinental Railroad in Utah,” and “Through Toil and Labor: The Forgotten History of Utah’s Chinese Railroad Workers.”
The exhibit includes photographs, lithographs and artifacts and is supplemented with objects from the museum’s own collection, to “expand the story and tie it more to the Moab community,” says Langworthy. “The Transcontinental Railroad” exhibit will be up through fall 2021.
Among the museum’s permanent collections are the stories of Europeans and Mormons who settled in the Moab area to farm or ranch, and how they managed to thrive in a hot, dry and remote environment. A large collection of artifacts, including bottles, farm equipment, saddles, and more help illustrate those stories.
One of the museum’s most iconic objects is a woven basket from 800-1,200 AD. The basket was found in a cave near Moab in 1990, by three young men who brought the basket to the local Bureau of Land Management office. The BLM loaned it to the museum where it has been on display for most of the past 25 years. The basket is currently undergoing conservation treatment and is expected to return to the museum soon.
When deciding on how best to prepare an exhibit of Native American ancestral objects, museum staff or the National Park Service consults with various Native American tribal members, including the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, and Laguna Pueblo members to ensure their stories are told accurately and respectfully.
Beresh recognizes that the possession of ancestral artifacts by museums is often controversial and that many Native Americans say those objects should remain on the land. What used to be a common practice of collecting ancient artifacts is now illegal. “My goal, because Native people have expressed this desire, is for us to display more contemporary items,” says Beresh, who is careful to add accurate information to exhibits that the tribes want shared with the public. Contemporary items the museum hopes to display in the future could include artwork, jewelry, and elaborate handmade garments The “Urbanek map” – a 6-by-8-feet three-dimensional topographical map made from balsawood and adhesive using a straight-edge razor – recently underwent restoration. Segments of the map were sent to sculpture and objects conservator Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud in Salt Lake City, who removed a layer of dust, insect carcasses and droppings, as well as skin and hair cells – debris that had accumulated over the years from being displayed out in the open where visitors could touch the object.
Restoration of the sculpted map is now complete and the museum is raising money to purchase an archival platform with a clear enclosure to display and protect the piece. The late John Urbanek spent 20 years creating the map known as his “love letter to Moab.”
Mary Langworthy, Community Relations Officer
Opposite page: One of the Moab Museum's most iconic objects, an approximately 1,000 year old woven basket, found locally 30 years ago. [Photo courtesy of Moab Museum] This page top: Sculpture and Objects Conservator Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud performs restoration of a portion of the museum's “Urbanek map” — a 6-by-8-foot three-dimensional topographical map of the Moab area. [Photo courtesy of Moab Museum]
BARNES PHOTOS, GUIDEBOOKS
Among the museum’s richest collections are the roughly 50,000 photographs taken by the late Fran Barnes – which the museum is in the process of digitizing. Additionally, the museum owns more than 40 guidebooks written by Barnes and his late wife Terby during an era when there were few such publications. The couple traveled extensively, including throughout the Moab region, which they documented from the 1960s through the 1990s.
Their daughter Terry Barnes Lewis, of Moab, recalls her parents exploring and mapping the backcountry three or four days a week. “When I was a kid I went out with them a lot. We flew over Canyonlands, did a lot of hiking, a lot of river trips. They were always kind of adventurous.” It wasn’t unusual for Lewis to be scuba diving in Mexico instead of attending school.
Lewis supplies Back of Beyond Books in Moab with copies of her parents’ 61 different guidebooks – bookstore owner Andy Nettell has dedicated a section of the shop to Canyon Country Publishing (Barnes’ publishing company). While her dad would write the books, her mom did essential editing and some writing, as well. As a teen and young woman in her 20s, Lewis created pen and ink illustrations for some of the books. “Outdoor recreation wasn’t a big thing, or the sole economy back then,” says Lewis. “My parents had a huge role in putting Moab on the map recreationally, as well as documenting the old Moab.” Guidebook writers who came along later relied on a lot of the information that the Barneses had gathered and documented, she says.
Her parents sometimes worked with wellknown scientists and university professors to create scholarly works about the region’s geology or paleontology. They found dinosaur footprints and bones; plus, her mother retraced and documented the 1859 McComb expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Utah.
Top: Moab Museum's renovated interior. [Photo courtesy of Moab Museum] Middle left: Moab author and photographer Fran Barnes. [Photo courtesy of Moab Museum] Middle right: Cowboys entered southeastern Utah in the late 1800s. This saddle was purchased in 1910 by Gertrude Goudelock, who helped her husband Dave run the Indian Creek Cattle Company. [Photo courtesy Moab Museum] Bottom right: This piano, made by Chickering & Sons of Boston, Massachusetts more than 100 years ago, traveled by rail, wagon, and ferry to Moab and brought merriment to a local dance hall at the time. [Photo courtesy Moab Museum]
Forrest Rodgers was appointed museum director in 2020, after initially being hired as a consultant when the museum board of trustees considered building a new museum off Hwy 191 along the Colorado River. Rodgers suggested surveying the community first to see what residents desired for their museum. Three ideas emerged from that community engagement assessment.
Respondents said they wanted the museum to remain downtown, but they wanted it “revitalized,” and they wanted the museum to grow. “That report became the blueprint of the museum for next couple of years,” Rodgers notes.
After former museum director John Foster resigned in 2018, trustees asked Rodgers to step in as interim director. Rodgers had experience overseeing a $23.5 million expansion campaign at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. Later he was recruited to direct the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington. He currently spends two weeks per month in Moab, working remotely from his home in Spokane the remainder of the time.
During the closure, museum events moved to online programming via Zoom. Staff focused on expanding the museum website by adapting stories online. “We did our best to replicate the museum experience for the virtual visitor,” Rodgers says. Pop-up exhibits happened in-person by appointment only.
The museum also used that time to collaborate with other organizations to find ways to share its collections. Dead Horse Point State Park will soon host an exhibit at the park’s visitor center. Moab Museum offers memberships which includes unlimited admission, invitations to special member events, and updates of what staff is working on behind-the-scenes. Summer hours are TuesForrest Rodgers, Museum Director day-Saturday, noon to 8 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults; $8 seniors, children and active-duty military; $30 for a household or family. Children 7 and under are free. Depending on the pandemic status, masks might be required in the county-owned building. Museum director Rodgers, who is in his 60s, grew up immersed in history – in Sudbury, Massachusetts, a town founded in 1639 – “literally the cradle of the American Revolution,” he says. He became familiar with southeastern Utah between his sophomore and junior years of high school, after spending part of a summer in Bluff, where he worked with a youth group affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The landscape made an impression on him. “The landscape of southeast Utah is spiritual – which is why such an investment of time to create a museum for the community is important,” says Rodgers. n
Left top: A storage container created by Ancestral Pueblo people over one thousand years ago, used to store food. It was found in Canyonlands National Park and is on loan from the park service. [Photo courtesy Moab Museum] Left middle: Vials containing processed uranium ore, known as "yellowcake," from Moab's days as a major center for uranium mining during the mid-twentieth century. [Photo courtesy Moab Museum] Bottom: Moab residents Sarah D’Angelo, left, and Victoria Hoang visit the
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