Two Rivers Museum Closing Saturday For Move

A Wisconsin museum got notice it has to make a quick move. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum has to clear out of its building by spring.The Hamilton Wood Type Museum has been in its Two Rivers building for 14 years. It houses one of the largest collections of type blocks, antique printing presses and more. It’s well known among typographical enthusiasts.

But the building’s owner is selling. So museum director Jim Moran is in the market for a new space, hopefully–he says–one in Two Rivers.

It will be an expensive move. Even just the packing process will be expensive.So far Moran says the museum is not quite half way to its goal, “It’s quite encouraging the support that we’ve gotten not only from around the country but around the world. It makes me optimistic.”

Since learning of the need to move–just last month–Moran says he’s raised $120,000. But he estimates it will cost at least $250,000, and that’s just to pack up, “Probably hiring a project manager to run the operation while we get ready to pack a million and a half pieces of type up and take care of everything from archival boxes to corrugated, to pallets, forklifts to semis. To get everything to a state where you can put it on a loading dock and take it away.”

The museum has a $7,500 matching grant from the Society of Typographical Artists, which is good until the end of the year.

The museum will close its doors on December 29th and hopes to reopen in a new space in April or May.