Benton County Historical Society executive director to retire gazettetimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gazettetimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
There should have been a party.
When the Corvallis Museum opened last week, there should have been some fanfare, a big communal celebration of an achievement more than two decades in the making. But in the age of COVID-19, that just wasnât possible. Add that to the list of things stolen from us by the pandemic.
Because of safety protocols aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus, the new museumâs opening on Friday was a quiet affair, with just six visitors at a time allowed inside the building to view the exhibits. Those limits will have to stay in place until Benton Countyâs case counts drop enough to move out of the stateâs âextreme riskâ category, and even then it will be some time before the museum is allowed to operate at full capacity.
The first visitor through the doors when the new Corvallis Museum opened at 11 a.m. on Friday was Freda Vars, and one of the first things that caught her attention was the old Horner Museum sign mounted on the wall of the buildingâs lobby.
Before Oregon State University closed it down in 1995, the Horner was a local landmark and a cultural touchstone for generations of schoolchildren from around the state, who were bused to Corvallis to gaze at the museumâs assemblage of Oregon Country artifacts and pet Horner mascot Bruce the Moose. (All that touching was hard on poor Bruce, who has now been fully restored and occupies a place of honor in the new museumâs lobby, where no petting is allowed.)