(Helena) – The Montana Heritage Center received a gift of $10.4 million dollars form Montana native Norm Asbjornson on August 21st to help with construction and improvements. Molly Krukenberg the Director of the Montana Historical Society talks about the reason for the money they were given.
“The Montana Historical society is building the Montana Historical Center so that we can, you know, do two things. One is to better preserve and protect the collections that we hold in trust for the citizens of Montana. And the second is to make those items more available to the public through better exhibit spaces and more public programing spaces and just create a more accessible and engaging space for our visitors to learn about Montana’s history and heritage and culture. And so, as we were approaching the design of our exhibits in particular about all of our visitor experiences, we looked for ways to enhance those experiences and, so, partially through Norms gift of $10.4 million we’re able to add all those enhancements to our project.”
She goes on to talk about what these enhancements are.
“The Enhancements are a lot of different things but what they allow us to do is to create digital experiences and immersive type experiences where visitors can really feel like they’re apart of Montana history. So, for example one we’re calling a mineshaft experience will allow visitors to feel like they are going into a mineshaft in Butte in the 1920’s. To really experience what it would have been like to be an underground miner in Butte and to help place our entire gallery into the landscape of Montana, you’re experiencing all of our various artifacts and interpretation of Montana history. So, they’re just ways that we can help the visitor better explore and understand and experience Montana history.”
