These buildings will become a newspaper, a bank, and a telephone office. (Melfort and District Museum/Facebook)

By Cam Lee

Melfort Museum expansion

Melfort and District Museum welcomes new buildings as part of expansion

May 26, 2025 | 4:52 PM

The Melfort and District Museum has added new buildings to the Settler Village.

The museum added two new buildings to kick off their expansion project.

Curator Brenda Mellon told northeastNOW the museum was very excited to see the buildings arrive on Friday.

“We’ve been working towards our expansion project since last summer,” Mellon explained. Prior work included preparing the grounds for the new buildings, installing some fencing, and moving trees.

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One of the buildings will be used as a newspaper, and the other will have two storefronts featuring a telephone office and a bank.

“We were really fortunate to receive additional land, generously donated from the Melfort Ag Society,” said Mellon. “It’s to the west of our settler village and this is providing us the opportunity to add new buildings to our property.”

Mellon said the museum currently has artifacts that are in storage that haven’t been able to be displayed because there simply hasn’t been room to do so.

“We have over 44,000 articles in our collection and many of them aren’t for public viewing so this will give us the opportunity to have a number of artifacts out on display.”

The museum will work on the interior of the new buildings this summer and will then stage them and set up the artifacts. Mellon said they hope to have an unveiling to the public by early fall.

“It’s great for people to be able to come and really experience everything the museum has to offer,” Mellon said. “It’s kind of a shame to have things in storage, so this is really giving us that opportunity to share the items that we do have here.”

The museum has started fundraising for the project, hoping to bring in $250,000. Mellon said they’ve begun approaching sponsors for their “Looking to the Future by Expanding the Past” fundraiser. A larger launch will take place this fall.

The settler village will open in June, and Mellon said people can have a look at the exterior of the new buildings while they are there. The museum’s community barbecues will also resume next month and be held every Wednesday through August.

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Cam.lee@pattisonmedia.com