SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — The Springfield Art and Historical Society and the Springfield Telescope Makers are opening a joint museum.
The Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday at 2 p.m. at the museum, located at 100 River St., in the building that also houses North Star Health.
“Their history is so intertwined and they just separately collected these artifacts,” said Mike Schmitt, executive director of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce. “To bring them together and to curate them together makes perfect sense.”
The two nonprofit organizations had been talking for a few years about opening a space. The Springfield Art and Historical Society has a museum in North Springfield, where the majority of its collection is located. Much of the history of the Springfield Telescope Makers, commonly referred to as Stellafane, is stored in the tunnels of the Hartness-Porter Museum of Amateur Telescope Making, located on Orchard Street.
The two organizations will separately maintain those locations while presenting rotating exhibits at the new museum.
“Both organizations were motivated to find a location that would be more accessible to people who want to find us, but also for people to discover us and our interesting and pretty unique history, particularly for Stellafane,” said Cecilia Detrich, president of the nonprofit organization.
Theo Avent agreed; he’s president of the Springfield Art and Historical Society. When he and Detrich heard that roughly 1,700 square feet of space was available in what is known as the Fellows Gear Shaper Building, they brought the idea to their respective boards. Fellows was once prominent in Springfield’s machine-tool history.
“Everyone agreed it was the right time, the right place to do this joint museum,” Avent said. “This is a space where we don’t even have to have the doors open: You can see inside the windows … the exhibits that are on display there. It catches people’s eyes.”
The organizations are still working out when the museum will be open. Avent said the hope is to be open two to three days a week, including one weekend day. Once the schedule is figured out, it will be posted on the organizations’ respective websites and social media pages.
The rent for the space is $22,000 a year, and the Springfield town government is paying for the first year, Avent said. The two organizations are exploring funding sources for the years to come.
The Springfield Art and Historical Society plans displays about the Eureka School House and John Swanson, a beloved Springfield resident who died last month.
Stellafane’s exhibits will include a comparison of the way telescopes are made now and how they were made a century ago, when the organization was founded.
“The craft of making mirrors and building telescopes really has not changed,” Detrich said, but some new technology has been introduced. For instance, “3D printing is a technology that our founders … would not have known about, but we believe (they) would have embraced these new technologies as we have.”
Another exhibit features a telescope made by Gladys Piper, the first woman involved in the organization, Detrich said.
The two organizations are also discussing other potential collaborations, including joint events.
“My main hope for this space is to bring residents of the Springfield community in to see a different part of our history, something they haven’t seen before, and for this to a be a place that people can come, people can reminisce, people can talk about the community Springfield has become and continues to be,” Avent said.
