Huron County Museum is a first class community museum offering visitors modern exhibition galleries and professional support spaces in a climate controlled environment.
Temporary exhibits cover a wide spectrum of subjects of special interest. Permanent exhibits depict the early settlement and development of Huron County. The History Hall with store fronts and a locomotive allows you to stroll back in time.
Young people enjoy turning the handles that bring the handmade models created by Museum Founder Joseph Herbert Neill to life. An extensive Military Gallery, Furniture Gallery and Agricultural Displays interest and fascinate the visitor.
The Huron County Museum is located in the original old Central School, erected in 1856. The original Museum collection was brought together by Mr. Joseph Herbert Neill (1884-1969) as a result of a lifetime of collecting. In 1948, he sold all of his 1,000 objects to the County of Huron for an average price of one dollar per object and with two conditions. First, that the County establish a public museum and second, that he be made the Curator for as long as he wished to hold the position. The doors of the Huron County Museum opened July 4, 1951.
Over the next fifteen years, Mr. Neill worked to complete exhibits and add buildings to the site of the Museum and by the time he retired in 1965 the Museum had grown to over 42,000 square feet filled to the rafters with artifacts from all over the County. Mr. Neill stayed on in the log cabin for the next two years. In 1967 he moved to Huronview, where he passed away in 1969.
In 1985, County Council decided to improve the physical plant of the Museum and four years later a brand new addition was opened that replaced all but the Central School building. This portion of the Museum saw major renovations in order to bring that structure up to current building and museum standards.
Today, the Huron County Museum consists of over 25,000 sq. feet of gallery and visitor support space and an additional 15,000 sq. feet of collections storage and maintenance space.
