Sep 16, 2021

St. Joseph Museums participating in annual 'Free Museum Day'

Posted Sep 16, 2021 12:00 PM
Doors to the Glore Psychiatric Museum which is participating in Free Museum Day/Photo by Brent Martin 
Doors to the Glore Psychiatric Museum which is participating in Free Museum Day/Photo by Brent Martin 

By MATT PIKE

St. Joseph Post

People around St. Joseph will have an opportunity for a 'day-cation' as select museums around St. Joseph will participate in 'Free Museum Day' on Saturday.

Beth Conway with the St. Joseph Visitors Bureau says Free Museum Day started as part of Smithsonian Day, which was created by Smithsonian Magazine, but in order to make it less confusing it was decided to just call it Free Museum Day.

Conway says around St. Joseph, how people will go about visiting the participating museums is a little different from how Smithsonian Day works.

"Normally through the Smithsonian Magazine, you'd have to go online and get a ticket to go to the individual museums that signed up for that particular free day," Conway tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "But in our case our museums decided to just forego that process, you don't need a ticket."

Instead, all you have to do is jump in the car and head to one of the participating museums.

"The whole family can go visit all of the museums in St. Joseph, or most of the museums in St. Joseph, and get in for free," Conway adds.

Conway says that some of the thirteen museums in St. Joseph will participate in the annual event on Saturday, adding that while most of the museums participating will just be allowing free entry, some of them will have some special events running during their operation hours.

"There's all kind of various activities, the best bet is to go to their individual websites or Facebook pages, to see what in particular they are doing," Conway explains. "Some museums are just opening for free during the day, there's not going to be a special event or special tour you just come and go as you please, but some are going to have special events on that day."

Conway acknowledges that some people may not realize how many museums there are in St. Joseph, and that Free Museum Day will provide an opportunity for those maybe lesser known museums to draw patrons in.

"It's a great opportunity for especially families that have a lot of kids that may not be able to afford the admission ticket that you normally have to pay on this particular day," Conway says. "We have 13 museums here in St. Joe, and so what we like to say is we have more museums per capita then even Washington D.C., it's enormous the amount of museums we have for a town our size."

• Various locations will be having their own programming or special events. Check links below for details.

The participating Museum Association of St. Joseph members, their location, and their hours for Museum Day are:

Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, 2818 Frederick, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.; http://albrecht-kemper.org/event/smithsonian-museum-day-free-admission/

Pony Express National Museum, 914 Penn, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; https://www.facebook.com/events/605868004127157

Robidoux Row Museum, 3rd and Poulin, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.; https://www.robidouxrowmuseum.org/

St. Joseph Museum, Black Archives Museum, and the Glore Psychiatric Museum, 3406 Frederick Ave., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; https://www.stjosephmuseum.org/

Wyeth-Tootle Mansion, 11th and Charles, will be open from10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
https://www.stjosephmuseum.org/wyeth-tootle-mansion

Andrew County Museum, 202 E. Duncan Drive in Savannah, Missouri, will also participate and they will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. https://andrewcountymuseum.org/