The museum’s new location at 291 Park St. has undergone significant renovations and now includes multiple new exhibits, with much more still to be added, according to museum Board of Trustees Chairwoman Kathleen Lefebvre. She said that the major exhibits will be permanent, while others will be rotated in and out.

Lefebvre said that the building they have moved to used to be a Tex-Mex restaurant, and was also formerly home to a couple of other business, including a store and a garage. The new building had its soft opening on March 30 and Lefebvre said that a lot of people showed up on that first day.

The renovations that were done to the building involved taking out a heat suppression system, removing a cooler that took up much of the largest room, putting in air conditioning, and redoing the ceilings, the walls, the doorways, the windows, parts of the floor, the outlets, the insulation, the paint job, the heat system and the lighting. Every part of the building was refurbished, according to Lefebvre. The job took about a year to complete.

Another improvement to the museum came with the hiring of Caroline Welch, director emirata of the Adirondack Experience Museum, who Lefebvre said did valuable work, writing papers and documents to explain the history preserved by the museum.

Tupper History Museum board members Dian Connor and Kathleen Lefebvre pose on Wednesday in front of photos taken by Kathleen Bigrow, which were collected by Jim Lanthier, in the museum’s new building. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

The process of fixing up and moving into the new building was paid for through a number of grants from multiple sources, including Cloudsplitter Foundation and Adirondack Foundation grants.

The museum was previously housed at the Tupper Lake Train Station, but with the railroad returning to service, Lefebvre said that the Adirondack Railroad ended up needing the space at the station for its construction work and train operations. Before the station, the museum, which was founded in 2005, lived in six other locations, excluding storage locations. Now the museum finally has a building that is expected to be its permanent home.

As a retired teacher, Lefebvre said she hopes that soon local schools can bring students in for field trips — perhaps the L.P. Quinn’s fourth grade Local History classes would like to come, she said.

She also said she would like to reach out to the Tupper Arts center about collaborating with them to display exhibits in their building.

The largest room of the museum, which is the one to the left when a visitor walks through the front door, is organized chronologically, starting next to the entrance to the room and progressing clockwise from least recent to most recent.

The chronology begins with a collection of arrowheads from the Indigenous Mowhawk tribe. Lefebvre is working on getting another Indigenous exhibit item from the Akwesasne Cultural Center.

Next are some of the notable early townspeople of Tupper Lake and an image from after the 1899 fire that destroyed much of the town due to their lack of a fire department at the time, incinerating something like 160 buildings, according to Lefebvre. There is also an excerpt of an old article from the Troy Times about the fire. Following that are a picture of the Klondike Saloon, which was constructed as part of the beginning of rebuilding after the blaze, and a photograph of William Flanders, a pioneer settler who helped inspire residents to restore the town when he rebuilt his store after the fire. He was related to Allen B. Flanders, whose name is commemorated by Flanders Park, where Allen’s lumber mill used to be. A street in Tupper Lake also bears the Flanders name.

Near William, there is a painting of the Hurd Mill, the largest lumber mill in New York state, which once broke the world record for the most sawing done in a single day.

Other exhibits in this room include one on the Oval Wood Dish factory, a totem pole that used to stand on Main Street, old farming equipment, old logging equipment — which will be added to from a shed full of items as the museum is able to accommodate them — a diorama of the railroads and lumber yards in the region that was handmade by Daniel Mecklenbourg and a case full of mementos from old Tupper Lake businesses, including Coke bottles from the Coca-Cola plant that used to be in the town.

The exhibit room adjacent to the first contains a section of items contributed by museum board member Jim Lanthier, who also worked on renovating the room. Pictures by photographer Kathleen Bigrow that Lanthier collected are featured in the room and there is a case full of cameras. A collection of military uniforms submitted by a man from Lake George hangs by the door. One uniform is from World War I.

In the lobby of the museum, old butcher shop equipment is on display and there is information about the immigrants who lived and worked in Tupper Lake, many of whom were Lebanese. There is also a wall dedicated to Tupper’s sports history.

To the right of the lobby is a collection of year books that have been collected into binders, along with a room featuring a funeral home exhibit from the Rishi family, who are on the museum board, and shelves populated by tools from Bob “Popcorn” Duhane, which used to belong to his father. There are miscellaneous items on a shelf opposite Duhane’s that come from restaurants and hotels, including a guestbook from the Altamont Hotel.

A room adjoining that one has items from the quilting group in Tupper, such as a spinning wheel and an old-time washing machine.

Outside the building is an old fire truck, which is comprised of two water tanks atop a two-wheeled wooden cart.

Lefebvre said the museum’s storage shed is so full of items from so many organizations that they have to keep some displays on rotation to avoid overcrowding. They want to go slow with getting around to displaying everything.

“We have things from organizations: We’ve got the fire department, (the) Rod and Gun Club, we’ve got politics, we’ve got the religion, we’ve got more with schools. We’ve got a lot,” she said

She went on to talk about all of the new exhibit contributions the museum is constantly receiving, including some from out-of-state donors.

Lefebvre said that the museum started in 2005 with Arthur Richer bringing together a collection of items. He initially called it the “Heritage Gallery,” and had it at the Richer farm at the time. From there, the museum was moved to the basement of the Temple Beth El synagogue, then to the library community room, then to a house near the local adult center, then to the fire station and then to the train station, according to Lefebvre. After they moved out of that building, they had to close the museum and store it for the winter, first in Ivy Terrace, then at museum board member Marlene Hyde’s gas station. They had to pack up again when the gas station became the location of the Timberjaxx Pass mini golf course.

Lefebvre said that at that point, the museum was determined to find a permanent location. They tried to move to the KSC Hall but it would have been too expensive, requiring roof construction. The building at 291 Park St. ended up being afordable and ideal for what they needed out of a location.

“We’ve been very lucky, because we’ve had a lot of support from the people of the community, the people outside the community,” she said, adding that they have a mortgage, but that they’ve been successful in paying it down quickly. People are still donating more money to them, according to Lefebvre.

She said that museum board members, herself included, played a role in the renovations once they got the building, including priming, painting and leveling cement.

“We live here, practically,” she said.

Lefebvre talked about the business they’ve had in the past, saying that while they were in the train station, they had vistors from all over the country and from other countries too, including Canada, Germany and Australia. One visitor worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.