Huntsville's Veterans Museum Expanding

Photo byHuntsville.org

Huntsville City leaders have taken the initial steps in the massive expansion of Huntsville's veterans museum. It's a project that's been on the table for years and finally starting to move.

"It's the only building that's left of the old Huntsville Airport and quite honestly it's a bit of an eyesore when you drive up," explained the museum's Deputy Director, Scott Thompson, "especially with all the great improvements that the city is making to (John) Hunt Park here, it kind of sticks out."

With all the growth in John Hunt Park, the city has not forgotten the museum.

"Our issue is they have incredible materials from our military and they don't have the room to really display them properly," added Huntsville City Administrator John Hamilton, "So, we've got to expand the facility we've got to renovate the facility, make it modern, make it more accessible to the public."

Hamilton continued, "It's been in the capital plan for a while, we're now at the point we're ready to execute it. (So) The architect is engaged, he's contracted with engineers to assist in the design process to move forward so we have some initial drafts of the design."

"It's going to be exciting to expand because we have a lot of equipment that's not in the museum it's in our storage yard," said Thompson.

The city is going to more than double the square footage of the current display area. Right now it's about 12,000 square feet, Hamilton said it will go to over 25,000 square feet to help properly display all the jeeps, tanks, airplanes and all the other items.

While the city is taking charge of expanding the building, the museum is tasked with raising money to update the furnishings and displays inside.

"There's a lot of furniture that's needed and it needs to be at a real elevated kind of condition, stuff that's appropriate to the material that's being displayed and designed specifically for the museum so we've asked to to help with the furnishings and things that will go inside," said Hamilton.

As it stands now, it's arguably one of the most impressive displays of our country's military history- and you don't have to take our word for it.

"One of the things that we're very proud of is on Trip Advisor as of today, we're the number one thing to do in Huntsville, believe it or not and that's a point of pride. We vary up and down on that sometimes we're three sometimes we're number one," beamed Thompson.

Creating a state of the art facility to preserve our past for future generations.

"We are super excited about the future of the museum here and I think in three years, visitors are going to come here and see a truly amazing first class military museum," he added.

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