Hagerman Valley Historical Museum

Mission:

The Hagerman Valley Historical Society and MUSEUM brings together people from all walks of life that are interested in the history of the Hagerman Valley and its preservation.

Our mission is to:

Preserve and promote the important cultural resources of the Hagerman Valley through a museum collection and educational outreach.

History:

The present day Hagerman Valley Historical Museum building was constructed in 1909 by investors in anticipation of a railroad boom. Investors chartered the Hagerman State Bank of Idaho in the building. Efforts to bring the railroad to Hagerman failed, but the bank endured. In 1916, with the creation of the national banking system, the bank changed its name to First National Bank of Hagerman. It operated as a national bank until November of 1935 and then closed.

The building was sold to the Village of Hagerman and leased to the federal government for the city’s postal operations in 1936. Some modifications were made to the interior; however the exterior remained essentially unchanged. The building was home to Hagerman’s post office for nearly fifty years, closing in 1984 when the current post office was built.

The Hagerman Valley Historical Society had been founded in September 1981 by M.J. Crutchfield Freeman, Billee Reed, and Gretchen Uppiano. Early meetings were held in the Hagerman Senior Center.

In 1984, the Historical Society entered into a lease agreement with the City of Hagerman to use the building as a museum. Remodeling and renovation of the building by both contracted and volunteer labor was completed during 1984, and the first historical society meeting was held in the ‘new’ museum building on September 24th, 1984.

In 1984-85, after the museum’s founders made several trips to the Smithsonian Institute, the University of Utah was retained by the Smithsonian to cast a fossil horse replica. In August 1985 Greg McDonald, curator of the Museum of Natural Science in Pocatello, mounted the Hagerman Horse specimen in the museum. The fossil specimen was first displayed to the public in July 1986. In 1988 the Idaho Legislature declared the Hagerman Horse to be the Idaho State Fossil. The museum building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.