The Crossville Military Memorial Museum has completed an extensive renovation project and is set to reopen next Tuesday.
The Museum closed just over a year ago as the building needed extensive work due to its age. Museum President Mark Pfaffenroth said he and several others are looking forward to finally reopening the museum.
“We have a lot of visitors, a lot of people coming by asking, ‘When are you gonna reopen? What’s going on?’ and things like that,” Pfaffenroth said. “So we are really excited about it. Our tour guides and other volunteers, I think everybody is just ready to get back in and you know, get back to doing what we were doing.”
Pfaffenroth said most of the museum’s work was done behind the walls and under the floor. Pfaffenroth said what people will notice is some new artifacts and displays.
“We do have a few new things,” Pfaffenroth said. “We have improved the Crossville POW camp from World War II. It’s got a new design to it. We actually have a Jewish concentration camp uniform now. That was something that was donated to us. And we’ve got some other artifacts and things like that. But a lot of it is just repositioning things so that you can see them better and putting the articles in a more logical path as you go through.”
Pfaffenroth said he believes it is important to have the museum reopen to show people how fellow residents fought for our freedom.
“Our goal is to show the people of the Upper Cumberland what part they played or their ancestors played in our American history in particularly our nation’s battles,” Pfaffenroth said. “And that’s what we are there for is to educate. A lot of veterans appreciate coming in there and seeing that they are being remembered, and what they did is being remembered.”
Pfaffenroth said the museum could not reopen without the help of volunteers and various donors. Pfaffenroth said the final part of the renovation is replacing the roof. Pfaffenroth said the roof should be completed sometime later this year.
The museum will have a reopening ceremony next Tuesday at 10am.
