Our Story

The museum was the result of planning of three important local citizens, Merrill Clouse, who headed the local grocery store and was president of the Hope Business Association, and Dorotha and J. Bill Heilman, who convinced Merrill that a local museum was necessary. There was a great deal of talk before the museum was actually organized in 1975. Several interested citizens were called together for the first meeting at which the museum became a reality. Mr. Clouse offered to rent the upstairs of the Weinland building, which he owned, on the northwest corner of the town square. The Heilmans volunteered to organize any donations and to set up schedules for the museum operation. Word got out that donations were needed for the museum and thousands of artifacts began to arrive. So many in fact that it wasn’t long before the museum had outgrown its space and had to add the downstairs of the building for its collection.