Come Inspire the Future at Sharlot Hall Museum

by Dr. Lisa Hayes, Executive Director, Sharlot Hall Museum
In 2028, the Sharlot Hall Museum will turn 100. Since arriving a year ago to become the new director of the museum, I have often thought how proud Sharlot would be to see how her vision for this place continues to be realized.
In her words: “I hope to make this building and the grounds around it a center of historical and literary interest and a sort of civic center for the pioneers of Yavapai County and for such organizations of young people as might be benefited of inspired by its ideals and purposes.”
Inspired by Sharlot’s vision, we are finding new ways to reach out and forge relationships with this remarkable community and make our campus a place where visitors can create meaningful connections with history.
This year’s exhibit “Toys! It’s Not All Fun and Games” generated such wonderful conversations among visitors that in 2022 we will be reaching out to discover “What’s YOUR Toy Story?” Thanks to a grant from the Arizona Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities, we will be using PixStori, a new web app, to gather stories from visitors about their own memories of toys. After all, it is the stories that give meaning to these objects.
We are also excited to launch a new youth-focused program called History Explorers that will include several history camps, facilitated family activities in our exhibits, and a teen curation project in partnership with the Launch Pad.
Also in development for next year is a new exhibit focused on the Prescott Rodeo and Frontier Days and 50th anniversary of the release of Prescott-set Steve McQueen movie “Junior Bonner.”
As you can see, there are a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline at the museum. We are many things here — a campus of beautiful buildings, scholars preserving, conserving and shaping our collections, a research powerhouse connecting past to present through stories and exhibits. Most of all, we provide our community with a point of contact to their own history.
Come visit the museum and see what we’re up to! We invite you to help us “Inspire the Future” as we plan for the museum’s centennial. Join us in shaping the ongoing story of the Sharlot Hall Museum as we prepare to refresh our permanent exhibits, enrich the archives and continue to grow public programming.