Bagdad Village Museum will reopen after two-year closure forced by COVID-19

A church over a century old sits on a Bagdad lot near a collection of parking spaces.

For now, those spots remain empty, just like they have for the last two years.

But in September, they will welcome visitors excited to see the inside of the church, which acts as the face of the Bagdad Village Museum Complex.

There is a group of roughly 10 people, the Bagdad Village Preservation Association, who have been working to maintain the history of the village of Bagdad, which sits just outside Milton. However, for the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic has forced the museum to shut its doors.

On Sept. 10, it will open back up to the public with cosmetic improvements to give the museum a fresh aura.

"When you have a museum that shut down, or anything that shut down, then you have got to clean it up. So, it takes time to clean it up," said BVPA Treasurer Elaine Willis. "But while it was shut down for COVID, we were able to do some repair on the building."

After the museum's reopening, the short-term plan is to have it open for several hours Saturdays starting at 9 a.m. Entry is free.

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What can people expect on the inside?

The church building — formerly belonging to the New Providence Baptist Church congregation — was originally built in 1901 and moved to its current location at 4512 Church St. in the late 1980s.

The building required extensive repairs in the past, after both Hurricane Ivan and Dennis caused damage.

"What Ivan didn't do, Dennis finished," Willis said.

Acting as the face of the complex, the Bagdad Village Museum is just one arm of the museum complex. The other two components include an adjacent building that features model living quarters for people that would have been alive in the early 20th and late 19th century.

Then, several blocks away is a static post office building built during that same time period. Willis and BVPA board member Luci Bailly emphasized that the post office component is not yet finished but the group did recently put a roof over it.

Inside the museum there are several distinct areas, including one section focusing on Bagdad's past as a sawmill town.

"We've got the story of the mill all the way down that side," Willis explained, gesturing toward the long wall running on the left side as you walk into the museum. "It (covers) 111 years crammed into that space."

Other sections of the museum feature artifacts discovered near Bagdad Elementary School in 2001, an assortment of classic children's toys and an area explaining the area's turpentine industry.

Then, there is the corner designated to various wars the United States was involved in.

"The men that lived here went to war during (during multiple time periods) because we've been here since 1840. So that's just a big part of what people did," Willis said. "And, of course, during war in Iraq and Baghdad, we were a focus."

Willis also spoke to the fact that, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the BVPA board and the museum would have special events. She specifically cited school trips, where local students would visit a variety of historical places in Bagdad.

"We'll getting back to that hopefully. But yes, in the past we have had schools come and do a study of the community," Willis said.

All said, Willis said she and her organization could always use additional volunteers, but she said has seen people in the area are interested in the history of the community.

"Things are changing. You've got to get history down on paper, or on the internet, so it doesn't disappear," Bailly said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Bagdad Village Museum Complex near Milton reopening after COVID hiatus