Volunteers researching options for bringing a museum to Mineral Wells

Sep. 26—MINERAL WELLS — A small band of Mineral Wells supporters is looking forward for the best way to look back at Crazy Town's unique history.

"I had always wanted to get a museum going here in Mineral Wells. and no one else seemed to be doing it," Kelly North said. "We want to focus on the water parlors, bath houses, sanitariums and the doctors that were here because of all of the people coming here for their health."

North, who operates a Mineral Wells-centered podcast from her home in the Crazy Water Hotel, confessed she knew nothing about establishing a museum. The idea grew from a months-old Facebook post she saw.

She sought advice from Kimberly Hoffman, marketing assistant at the Mineral Wells Area Chamber of Commerce.

"You want to get together and find some other like-minded people and get started," North recalled Hoffman's direction. "There's eight of us right now. and I've got three other people I want to reach out to."

The group has met twice, she said.

"We're just trying to find the right group of people at the right time," she said. "Every stage that we go along we may have to bring in a different group of people."

Call this first group, the researchers. North said there are plans to visit other area museums to see what makes them tick.

"Early on on our list is a museum in Cisco, Texas," she said. "And, of course, we want to go to the (W.K.) Gordon (Center for the Industrial History of Texas) museum — if you can can get a museum going in a ghost town, you're pretty good."

The Gordon museum, on the site of long-deserted Thurber, is a research facility of Tarleton State University.

Group members Stacy and Lori Blackburn already have been to a couple of museums in the area.

"We're asking, how are you funded, staffed," North said. "Do you charge admission or is it donations?"

North said she has no timeline for reaching other stages of the mission, including fundraising. She said five or six years is plausible.

"We may get to that (fundraising) stage, I think, when we get to know what all needs to be done," she said. "And visiting all these museums will help that. We'll get an idea of where we need to be and what the stages are."

Mineral Wells is home to two specialty museums — the National Vietnam War Museum and the little Rock School House Museum on NW Fifth Avenue just north of West Hubbard Street is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

North's group also has set up a temporary showcase museum in the Crazy Water Hotel.

Like fundraising, site selection is pretty far down the road.

"I would love for it to be downtown," North said. "But with all the revitalization going on, that is going to be prime real estate. ... At least one place, somebody donated the building. You never know what's going to happen."

North said the group plans to survey local residents about what they'd like to see in their museum.

"We're going to ask the community at some point for their input," she said. "It's a museum for the citizens of the town, to know and appreciate and share their history."

That's a history that keeps turning up surprises.

"There were 46 patents done," she said. "Forty six inventions done by local medical business owners and doctors.

"We may be covering some of the cattle drive history, we're not sure. ... Most of these health resorts also were offering entertainment, so people weren't coming just for their health. They were coming to get away."

For more information on the museum project, or to contribute, email the group at mwmuseum@yahoo.com.