About Us

Plans for a historical society in Clay County began in 1940. However, with World War 2 and the war effort, those plans were discarded. It wasn't until August of 1972 that 20 concerned citizens gathered to solve the lack of a historical society. Thus, the Clay County Historical Society was born with Cathy Haney as president.

The Historical Society was formed with the mission of “The purpose of this society shall be to bring together those people interested in history, and especially the history of Clay County, Kansas. The society's major function will be to discover and collect any material which may help to establish or illustrate the history of the area.

It wasn't until 1975 that the Historical Society acquired its first museum building, the old city hospital built in 1925. The Clay County Museum was officially opened on September 20, 1975. With Cathy Haney's leadership as museum curator, the museum continued to acquire hundreds of artifacts a year, while also becoming the genealogy center for the county. In August of 1993, the museum also became a repository for county records when the County Courthouse ran out of room.
In 2011 came the realization that the current museum building could no longer contain the ever-growing collection of artifacts. Fundraising began and soon a building was found in 2012. The large two-story building was located in the historic downtown Clay Center. The new building required lots of construction as we turned it into a museum from a furniture store.

2016 was a hard year for the Historical Society. In June, Cathy Haney unfortunately passed away after leading the museum for almost 40 years. This left only two full-time employees. Our Digital Curator, Jeff Gaiser, who stepped into the director position to keep the new building project on course, and our Curator of Artifacts, Diana Shaner. With the new director's leadership, the remodel of the new building steadily progressed. Then the Historical Society received pressing news in October. The Clay County Commissioners asked the Historical Society to vacate their current building. They planned to demolish the building so the construction company remodeling the Clay County Medical Center could park their equipment on the land. The Historical Society was asked to move the entire museum within the next few months. Frantic packing of the museum began in early December. With the help of several local volunteers, Kings Moving & Storage from Junction City, and Americorp Group from Colorado, moving started on January 9th, 2017, and was completed ten days later.
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Throughout the next few months, the remodel of the first floor continued steadily for the Grand Opening in September. The Grand Opening drew a large crowd with a wonderful performance from a Theodore Roosevelt re-enactor. The next few years in the museum were going as smoothly as possible with only the two full-time employees keeping it going. Displays were regularly updated and improved and a traveling exhibit called Magna Carta was displayed in 2019. Also in 2019, the museum received a wonderful early 1900s pharmacy display through one of our local pharmacists.

The staff had almost finished turning the second floor into another exhibit area when 2020 happened. The displays were in place and a new traveling exhibit was on the way when COVID-19 hit. By the time the second floor was ready for visitors, the pandemic had already changed life as we knew it. To protect its staff and volunteers, the museum shortened its hours and was open by appointment only. Throughout COVID, we've taken the time to update some of our displays and also create new ones.
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Museum staff regularly attend museum conferences which allows us to keep updated on the changes happening in the museum world while also getting ideas on how to improve our museum.
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As we look to the future, the Museum Staff and Board continue to work on plans to better our museum.