The Palmer Museum of History and Art packs a lot into its tiny log cabin on Valley Way. It shares the space with the Palmer Visitor Information Center. It has a gift shop. The Palmer showcase gardens are on its grounds. It offers walking tours of Palmer. It hosts events like Artist of the Week and the Wine Walk.
The permanent exhibit space at the museum has needed updating for years. A redesign effort failed ten years ago due to the cost. Former museum board president Pat Chesbro remembers the effort. She says the work was estimated at $250,000.
The new redesign effort will cost much less. It will happen with community input.
The funding problem is solved. The project is backed by more than $30,000 in grants according to Executive Director Dylainie Nathlich. The funds come from the Rasmuson Foundation, the Palmer Community Foundation, and the City of Palmer.
Nathlich hired Juneau-based exhibit design firm Exhibit AK to lead the redesign. She says the new design will be shaped by staff and community input.
She says the museum attracts more than 30,000 visitors every summer. The displays trace the history of Palmer from its roots as a crossroads of Ahtna and Dena’ina people through the fur trade, railroad, mining, and the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project.
Nathlich wants the museum experience to be immersive. Exhibits will draw on more than sight. For example, a visitor can do more than just see a birch bowl. They could touch and smell it, too.
Community input on the project started this past Tuesday night. Nathlich and Exhibit AK designer Christine Carpenter led a brainstorm. They asked for the kind of quiet, personal histories that Nathlich says connect visitors to Palmer.
One story people wanted is about Alan Linn. He helped his mother deliver milk to Colony families as a young man. He worked as an engineer on the original Matanuska Bridge years later.
Dean Phipps is former Director of Marketing at the Alaska State Fair. He told tales of the giant vegetables that the Mat-Su is famous for. That includes the seeds from a record-setting pumpkin that sold at auction for $800 apiece.
Another story people wanted is “Saxton’s Navy.” The nickname stuck to a practice by former Deputy Magistrate Dorothy Saxton. She gave young men in trouble with the law the choice of jail or military service.
Chickaloon Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Angie Wade said “The Valley was made with wind and water. You can’t tell the proper story about this place without it.”
The ability to rotate parts of the exhibit drew support. Letters, oral histories, or a story of a community member could go on display every few months.
That should be possible, says Nathlich. The museum stores about 3,000 objects and 14,000 photographs.
Nothing is decided yet. The floor plan and construction timeline need to be developed. Nathlich wants more community input.
She hopes that representatives from the Palmer City Council and the Mat-Su Borough will attend future meetings. She wants them to engage with the project. Their bodies help fund the museum.
For the people who did turn out, the night was bigger than exhibit planning.
“Collective good memory. That’s what museums are, isn’t it?” says one attendee.
Additional community meetings will be scheduled. For more information visit palmermuseum.org.
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Emily Forstner reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.
That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Friday, September 18, 2026.
Image: Dean Phipps listens in during the Palmer Museum of History and Art’s Community Conversation night by Emily Forstner.