Donors Get First Peek At New Becker County Museum Building; Science Level To Open February 17th

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – Donors and members of the Becker County Museum got a sneak peek on Wednesday night at their annual meeting.

“We’re getting ready to start opening the doors,” says Executive Director Becky Mitchell. “It’s almost unbelievable that we’re almost at this point.”

The capital campaign for the new facility began fundraising in 2015. The $6.4 million, two-story 30,000 square-foot facility officially broke ground in late May of 2021, with half of the amount being funded by a bonding bill appropriation approved by the State Legislature in October 2020.

And since then, it’s been a race against the clock and the elements to get the sensitive documents boxed up and moved out of the old building, which was prone to leaking pipes, mold, broken furnaces, and other challenges.

“We closed the doors to the old facility over a year ago,” says Mitchell. “We reached a point where we needed to get things packed up to get ready to move. But also, that old facility had gotten to the point where moisture and mold and things like that, it wasn’t an environment that was very conducive to serving our region.”

The old facility was demolished last November.

The new Museum space will feature a kids’ science floor, makerspace areas, local history and research, and natural sciences.

“We are just starting to set up the science area on the second floor, but the contractors are still inside working. The main floor is still very much a construction zone. But in the effort to seek some normalcy, we are choosing to do a phased opening this year.”

The first phase of the opening will be the unveiling of the Science Level on the second floor, along with a few spaces on the main level, on Friday, February 17th. 

“After that, we’ll work on getting our History Level set up, and then our research spaces set up and do another grand opening sometime in May or June,” says Mitchell. “We want to get our community in this facility as soon as possible. And this project has been a long time coming, so we may as well celebrate for the whole year, right?”

The Museum will also host a couple of events prior to the opening of the science level: the Mother/Son Bash will be held at a space in the Museum on Friday, February 10th (with the Daddy’s Little Sweetheart Dance held in the Holmes Theatre at the same time), as well as the fifth-annual Chocolate Fantasy fundraiser on 14th.