A bunch of people are on board for moving the Meramec Valley Historical Museum into the shuttered Red Cedar Inn in Pacific, Mo., and using the old museum property for a Catholic school.
Route 66ers, the mayor of Pacific, the Red Cedar’s owner and a slew of state and federal officials are all in favor of the still-in-progress proposal.
But apparently that excludes some committee members of the museum, reports the Tri-County Journal.
“Some of us on the committee have kept our mouths shut about this, but we aren’t going to keep our mouths shut anymore,” said Jeannie Bandermann. “We don’t want to move.”
Bandermann, a member of the Meramec Valley Historical Museum Committee, told Pacific aldermen at their July 15 meeting that committee members strongly oppose moving the museum from its current location at 206 W. Union St. to the historic Red Cedar Inn, 1047 E. Osage St. (Old Highway 66). The Red Cedar Inn has been an area landmark for more than 70 years. The business closed in March 2005, but still attracts visitors who want a glimpse of the Route 66 icon. […]
Bandermann said because Red Cedar is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, there are rules for restoring and renovating the structure that likely would preclude constructing any additional walls inside the building. She said that would mean there would be no space for an office or work room. […]
The Red Cedar’s location is also a problem for museum committee members, Bandermann said.
The Red Cedar Inn is located in the small part of eastern Pacific that is in St. Louis County.
“We’d have to follow St. Louis County rules, and we don’t trust St. Louis County,” she said.
Also, the Red Cedar is located on Old Highway 66 and is too near the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, Bandermann said.
“Anyone could come in and rob us or whatever,” she said. “Some of our members won’t work at the museum anymore if it moves there.”
The first part of the argument — that the Red Cedar’s National Register of Historic Places listing would prevent interior renovations — was shot down in the article.
Members of an architectural firm specializing in the restoration of historical structures, though, said there is nothing to prevent Red Cedar from being restored and used.
And having seen dozens of National Register properties on Route 66 over the years, I can assure the museum committee that such designations do not preclude interior renovations. You’d think the people who run a historical museum would know better on an issue like that.
As for the second and third part of the arguments, they’re weak. “We don’t trust St. Louis County” smacks of provincialism, especially when the committee members don’t elaborate on what the beefs are.
So that brings us to the Missouri Eastern Correctional Facility, of which I surmise that Bandermann is concerned about escaped inmates. However, with an extensive Google search, I found only an attempted escape from the facility in 1992. The Red Cedar Inn occupied that spot on the road for decades, and escaped prisoners were never a problem there. So there’s no concrete reason to believe it would be a problem at a converted Red Cedar Inn, either.
The article lays out several other factors on why moving into the Red Cedar Inn would be beneficial for the museum. The Red Cedar has more than four times the available space. It is a historical building, while the current museum property is not historic and is housed in a nondescript residential building.
I get the distinct impression the museum committee opposes the move simply because it doesn’t want to. And being obstinate isn’t a good enough reason.