Museum of Casa Grande details exhibits, educational outreach and volunteer-run operations

Michael Sirota, director of the Museum of Casa Grande, told the City Council in a study-session presentation that the museum’s main property covers about 42,000 square feet and that the institution has preserved local history since 1964.

“Our mission is to preserve, interpret and disseminate the history of the Casa Grande region,” Sirota said, adding that adult admission is $7, seniors $6 and children are admitted free. He said school tours and educational outreach are provided at no charge.

The museum’s collections include nearly 18,000 artifacts and about 24,000 photographs and documents related to the Casa Grande Valley, Sirota said. Exhibits described in the presentation include a Native exhibit with artifacts dated as old as 2,000 years (assembled in partnership with the Gila River Indian Community), railroad models and functioning Morse code machines, a mining display with a functioning mine car, a mid‑century exhibit, banking artifacts including an original safe and teller cage, and military displays spanning the Civil War through modern conflicts.

Sirota also reviewed buildings on the museum property. Heritage Hall, whose stonemason was Michael Sullivan, was completed in 1926 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Rebecca Dallas Schoolhouse (sometimes referred to in the presentation as the White Schoolhouse), preserves local African American schooling history; the presentation said Rebecca Dallas taught roughly 50 to 70 students in grades K–8 at the Southside Colored Grammar School in 1939. The museum is also the steward of the Weaver Pioneer Cemetery, a 35,500-square-foot site deeded to the museum in February 2006; the presentation said its earliest recorded burial dates to 1889.

Sirota described the museum’s public programming, including a free monthly speaker series called History Speaks (held at Dorothy Powell Senior Center in partnership with Arizona Humanities) and visits to senior living communities and schools across the Valley. He said the museum has produced off-site changing galleries (at the city finance and administration building and the Casa Grande Airport) and participates in local events; the museum is partner to the Neon Sign Park and to ArtMobile work with the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

On staffing, Sirota said the museum has one full-time staff member (himself), one part-time staff member (Erin Henderson, museum coordinator) and relies on volunteers for nearly every other function. Volunteers logged more than 2,400 hours in the most recent year, he said, supporting tours, marketing, collections management, the gift shop, grant writing and facility maintenance.

Council members and others in the meeting thanked Sirota and several speakers shared brief personal recollections of visiting the museum on school field trips. No formal council action was taken during the presentation.