Behind the scenes collection tour

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Join in a tour of the Paris Museum & Historical Society collections behind the scenes.

Our curator will be on-site to guide groups through the extensive collection in Paris Ontario.

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Paris Museum & Historical Society

Regionalization loomed over Paris in 1972. Late that year, the mayor and nine far-sighted volunteers gathered in Fred Bemrose's living room. Their purpose was to create the Paris Museum and Historical Society.

They feared the Paris library would soon lose its collection of historic documents; letters of the village founder Hiram Capron, pre-Confederation photos, original maps and irreplaceable records. They wanted to safeguard the town's heritage before it was lumped together with other archival material in a centralized regional library.

At the time, Paris was a tightly-knit rural community of 6,500 with a strong sense of its own history. Life was slower then. People read newspapers, wrote letters and met at church, the library and community events.

Bemrose, a salesman for Penman's Textiles, was joined that afternoon by Donald A. Smith, a respected local historian and principal of the high school, along with his wife Isobel; Jack Pickell editor of the Paris Star, along with his wife Muriel, Jackie Remus, an avid guardian of Paris's identity, a couple of town councillors and several members of the library board.

They purchased the entire collection from the library for $1.00. To help them get started, the library allowed the fledgling museum to use its lower level (now the children's department) for its collection.

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