The museum has called the former Otho Elementary School home for the last 20 years, but about 10 years ago, the aging building started causing problems.

In 2015, a deluge of rain and a leaky roof led to rainwater flowing into the old Otho school, soaking ceiling tiles and saturating some of the antique displays. Fortunately, most items were able to be saved. However, the problems persisted.

In 2019, Phyllis Stewart, who serves as the museum’s unpaid volunteer curator, told The Messenger that the problems had reached the level of “crisis.” At that point, the museum was closed to the public due to the damp conditions of the building from the leaking roof during snow thaws and rain storms, and most of the items on display were covered in plastic in an attempt to protect them from water damage.

Ruth Smid, a board member who has since passed away, told The Messenger in 2016 that this history is important to her.

-Messenger file photo
A mannequin wearing an old Boy Scout uniform stands among the plastic covered displays and water stained carpeting at the Webster County Museum in Otho in 2019.

“I’ve just always loved seeing the older things,” she said. “I think it’s so necessary to save it because the coming generations aren’t going to know anything about what our ancestors did.”

Stewart and the museum’s board have spent several years trying to find a new home for the facility. In 2019, the board put in a bid to buy the former McGregor’s building on Central Avenue, but was unsuccessful.

And so the search continued, and eventually led to the board’s purchase of 1506 31st Ave. N., in Fort Dodge.

The museum’s new home has some history of its own — it’s where Fort Dodge’s iconic Lazy Ike fishing lures were manufactured for many years.

The museum has a new home, but the challenge Stewart’s facing now is moving the 11,000 square feet of artifacts and antiques from Otho to Fort Dodge. She’s asking for volunteers to help pack up the items in the Otho school, load them into trailers or vehicles to move to the new facility, unload in Fort Dodge and help set up the displays in the new building. Stewart said she also needs volunteers to donate the use of their trucks or other vehicles to help move the items. Anyone interested in helping can call Stewart at 515-972-4804. She said the sooner the museum’s contents get moved, the better.

-Messenger file photo
Phyllis Stewart, curator of the Webster County Museum, looks over an area that had standing water on the floor from the leaking roof in 2019.

The Webster County museum is an important reservoir for Webster County’s history, Stewart said. All of the towns are included in the museum.

“Webster County has a lot of history,” Stewart said. “We have a lot of railroads and at one time, we were the only county in Iowa that mined five minerals at the same time.”

Those minerals were coal, clay, gypsum, sand/gravel and limestone.

In 2019, Stewart said the museum gives people an opportunity to experience the county’s history in person.

“It’s not like bringing it up on the internet,” Stewart said. “They can see the real thing. I had a little guy come in and we have a bucket of coal in a railroad display. He wanted to know if that was coal, and it was. I said, ‘Well pick up a piece.’ And this little guy held the coal in his two hands and he said, ‘Can you believe it? I am holding a piece of coal.'”

-Submitted photo
A leaky roof combined with the spring snow melt and rains left several areas of the Webster County Museum in Otho with standing water on the floor in 2019.

The museum also features the state’s largest Boy Scouts collection and an extensive military collection housed in a case built by an Eagle Scout, Stewart said.

Once the museum’s items are moved and set up in the new building in Fort Dodge, visitors will be able to see exhibits that feature turn-of-the-century wedding dresses, antique furniture, the 1910 organ from Mount Ayr’s Princess Theater, Olson Jewelry’s cannonball safe, Joselyn Press printing press, the Gowrie Star Theater movie projector, a collection of vintage toys and late 1960s Archie comics and more.

“We welcome any items that will tell the story of Webster County, and also memories or stories,” Stewart said. “We need to share them because when they’re gone, they’re gone.”