NEWS

Montana Historic Society seeks expansion funding

Kristen Inbody
kinbody@greatfallstribune.com

HELENA – About 90 percent of the art and artifacts in the Montana Historical Society are not on display.

The MHS collection includes letters from Iwo Jima, accounts from the Bozeman Train, C.M. Russell paintings, wedding dresses, pieces of pioneer kitchens and the famous white buffalo Big Medicine. The artifacts illustrate what Montana is and has been, said MHS spokesman Tom Cook.

"A lot of people came here as kids and got their first experience of what being a Montanan is," he said. "We're educating Montana's future citizens. You have to understand history and the meaning of a place."

The Montana Historical Society has been chancing funding for a new building to house and protect its collection — as well as other aims of the museum — for 15 years. The society has plans for a Montana Heritage Center, which would include a remodel of the current building next to the Capitol and the addition of another building next door and connected with a corridor.

"Montanans have always taken great pride in what they've done on the land and their history," Cook said. "If this goes through, in 50 years that will be what the Legislature is remembered for, that they built this place for Montana."

A model of the proposed construction greets visitors to the Montana Historical Society. The new addition would be used not just for archive storage but also for the museum's other missions like research and outreach.

The chances for funding the project are dimming this legislative session, but Rep. Mitch Tropila said he still sees some hope.

The Great Falls Democrat has been an advocate for the museum on the House Appropriations Committee.

"This is something that needs to be done. We just need to do it sooner rather than later," Tropila said as the committee met Friday.

House bills have to be passed onto the Senate by Tuesday and Senate bills to the House to stay alive. Rep. Roy Hollandsworth,

R-Brady, made a last-minute pitch to Appropriations for a "plan B" to keep options open for funding the historical society expansion project.

"We're passionate about the historical society, and this is in case the wheels falls off" other options, Hollandsworth said.

"This is very important to me. I've been pushing it for three sessions," he said. Hollandsworth said younger legislators don't have the same perspective on Montana's history as those who have lived through more of it.

"The aging of Montana is happening at a rapid rate. People will look through our stuff (after we die) and if we don't have a central collection place, do you know what kids are going to do with it? Into the dumpster," he said.

"If we don't do this, we're passing on buildings in sad shape. It's pay now or pay later," he said. "We could use the jobs, too."

The Montana Capitol was once, to put it bluntly, "a dump, nothing the people of Montana could be particularly proud of," Cary Hegreberg of the Montana Contractors' Association to the committee. Once the legislature finally approved money to remodel it (restoration began in 1996), "I haven't heard a single person lament that we did it."

Montana Historical Society is overcrowded, says Public Information Officer Tom Cook as he surveys some of the oversize document archives that haven't yet been loaded into new shelves.

"Someday there will be a new historical society in Montana. The people of Montana will be proud of it, and the legislature that approves it will be proud of it. Even legislators who voted against it will come to it with the grandkids," he said.

When he saw a C-SPAN program highlighting states and showcasing their historical society, Rep. Robert Mehlhoff, D-Great Falls, told the committee he was embarrassed by this state's small facility. He called it unfair to the people of Montana.

"People have donated things that help us understand what Montana was like in the past, and it's in the basement, unseen," he said.

"We can say we can wait another generation, but it's the time, with the environment we're in now, with the interest rates we have now," Mehloff said. "In a while, we'll says we can't afford to build. Now it's time. Then people from all over the nation and our own state can understand what Montana is all about."

The historical society project also is in Senate Bill 416, and House Bill 5, noted committee chairwoman Rep. Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton. The committee then tabled the bill on an 11-9 vote.

Infrastructure projects for every part of Montana are included by House Bill 5, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Wellborn, R-Dillon. The bill would put into action Gov. Steve Bullock's Build Montana program, a $391-million bill that includes $212 million in bonding, including $39.5 million for the historical society. House Appropriations tabled that bill.

If House Bill 5 makes it to the House floor, it would require 75 votes (out of 100) to pass the House. Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson, doesn't expect that to happen.

"If the governor wanted to make this a priority then he would have put it in its own stand-alone bill — combining all projects into one bill ensures that none of the state's projects will get funding," he said.

Senate Bill 416, sponsored by Sen. John Brenden, R-Scobey, would create an infrastructure grant and loan program through the Department of Commerce and Department of Administration, with the funding levels triggered by state revenue levels and at its maximum more modest than the governor's vision. It met unanimous approval in the Senate Finance and Claims Committee on Friday.

Sen. Bradley Hamlett, D-Cascade, proposed another option with his Senate Bill 420. He'd have a private contractor build the Montana Heritage Center, which the state would lease with a purchase option. It passed the Senate Finance and Claims Committee 10-9 on Friday.

Meanwhile Senate Bill 364, sponsored by Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, to name the Montana Heritage Center after former Montana first lady and state history enthusiast Betty Babcock has passed the Senate and the House State Administration Committee. So should the new building be built, it's well on its way to a name.

As for the building, a main dividing point has been an ideological difference on how to pay for it, with some opposed to bonding, MHS Director Bruce Whittenberg said.

"This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue but a Montana issue. We're all Montanans," he said. "We have a lot of support on both sides of the aisle."

The project is expected to cost $48 million, and the society has raised about $4 million. Whittenberg said if the House Bill 5 passes they'll have enough money to do the project. Some of the pledges are continent on the Legislature acting.

People see the MHS as as a museum, Whittenberg said, but the project would address the five missions of the MHS: museums, outreach, preservation, research and a press.

"All the things we're doing justify an investment like this in the historical society," he said.

"We literally serve every county," Whittenberg said. "It's not just a Helena institution."

Whittenberg estimates a better museum would double or triple visitation.

"It could be an economic driver," he said.

The new building would add 45,330 square feet to the existing building's 67,000 square feet. The project would double the museum's C.M. Russell gallery, add classrooms, incorporate the historical preservation office, increase storage and access and provide for museum-standard temperature and ventilation controls. The design adds about 100 parking lots to the Capitol complex as well.

"We have the opportunity and the need," Whittenberg said. "The opportunity is to do a much better job caring for and exhibiting the collection."

The new center would have an events center with seating for 300.

Expansion plans for the Montana Heritage Center.

The artifacts need better protection than a 65-year-old basement affords, Whittenberg said. Environmental conditions put the collection at risk. So does the over-crowding of the collection, he said. Access is limited.

"There are some threats," he said. "A flood in the basement would be a disaster."

Visitors to the center now meet an office-building facade, Cook said. The project would present a more welcoming face.

"This would say, this is where you come. This is a welcoming place for Montana," Cook said.

Museum staff already directs visitors to the state to Fort Benton, Great Falls, Browning and other heritage sites, Whittenberg said. That mission would be enhanced by making a more visitor-friendly center, he added.

With the MHS between Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, visitors traveling between the two stop in Helena. The MHS can "keep the in Montana for another night or two" with their referrals and recommendations, he said.

Perhaps celebrations of the 150th birthday of the Montana Historical Society will help spur the legislature to action, Whittenberg said.

"The 150th would be a wonderful time to commit to the next 150 years and the vision of our founding fathers," he said.

On Feb. 2, 1865, the territorial legislature in one of its first acts established the Montana Historical Society, making Montana's historical society the oldest such institution in the West. The collection was in Virginia City, then downtown Helena and in 1902 the collection moved into the basement of the Capitol.

The MHS makes its home now in the Veterans and Pioneers Memorial Building. Veterans who came home from World War II brought back an appreciation for their home state and its history, Cook said. The 1949 Legislature appropriated the money for it — long after the the conversation about a new building began in 1923. Construction started in 1950.

"It's time for the next generation to step up to do their part for Montana history. It's an important time in and for Montana history," Cook said. "Montana founders said from the first that it should be up to Montanans to tell the Montana story. That's what this place does, tell Montana's story."

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at kinbody@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter at @GFTrib_KInbody.