Region of Three Oaks Museum welcomes home large artifacts

BY FRANCESCA SAGALA

To prepare for the almost ready, expansive storage space at the Region of Three Oaks Museum (TROTOM), members of the museum board moved in some large artifacts that have recently been re-gifted to the museum: an elegant horse drawn carriage and a hearse with hand-carved ornamentation and a mirror.

The items were part of the collection of the ChamberlainWarren Museum that was located in Three Oaks from 19161952 and have been stored underneath the Spartan Stadium at Michigan State University since the museum’s closure. Now, they’ll be housed in the 1440 square foot addition to the museum’s current storage facilities that’s nearing completion.

finish their work on the $104,000 addition, which they’ve been working on since May.

Regarding the expansion, Nick Bogert, museum board member, said the interior walls are now up and the ceilings are up. Shelving will hopefully be installed late this month.

The items were part of the collection of the ChamberlainWarren Museum that was located in Three Oaks from 1916-1952 and have been stored underneath the Spartan Stadium at Michigan State University since the museum’s closure. Now, they’ll be housed in the 1440 square foot addition to the museum’s current storage facilities that’s nearing completion.

Items from the attic of the Three Oaks Township Library, where the museum was originally located, will need to be moved in as well. Bogert said they don’t have many details about the items yet and have asked MSU to send any information they have that’s available.

“You can figure by approximate age of this (the hearse), we’d know what undertakers did business in Three Oaks during that time period,” he said.

When the original museum dissolved, the 80,000 items in its collection were transferred to the Michigan State University Museum, with some large items going into storage under the stadium’s stands. Stadium officials are now reclaiming that space and some large items originally from Three Oaks will be returning to TROTOM.

This is what occurred Friday, July 28, when museum volunteers drove up to East Lansing to bring the items home.

With the shell of the new addition now complete, the large items can be stored securely while construction crews from Oatsvall Construction

He said that, since people were beginning to get cars during the early 1900s, his assumption is that both the carriage and hearse are from the 19th century. Small details can reveal big clues as to the items’ history – such as with the carriage, board member Randy Miller said.

“We’re going to see if there’s a nameplate on it because usually when there’s carriage maker, lots of times they put a nameplate on it that they made it and since the Vickers’s (Theater, in Three Oaks) was a carriage maker way back when, the possibility also exists it may have been made there,” he said.