By Adrienne Brown
Special to the Mirror
The Gladewater Museum sits facing historic red brick streets, looking out over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and the town’s famous antique shops. A familiar fixture in downtown, the museum’s full of well-cared-for and well-researched displays depicting Gladewater’s 150-plus year history, a plain Art Deco masonry building inviting visitors to step inside and peer into the past through the loving lens crafted by its caretakers.
Functioning solely on donations and volunteers, Gladewater Museum works to connect the people of the past – those who helped develop Gladewater into what it is today – with current residents of the town. While many drift into the museum to soak up stories about this corner of East Texas, the museum itself has an interesting history of its own.
On Sunday, Nov. 9, Gladewater Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary. Elaine Roddy, the museum’s director, was excited to show off a new exhibit chronicling the museum’s history through the decades. While the museum was established in the early 2000s, efforts to create it began much earlier.
The Gladewater Historical Society – later known as the Gladewater Museum Association – began collecting information about the town in the early 1970s in order to publish its history in book form. Later, in 1987, the organization began laying the groundwork for a museum to preserve Gladewater’s history, storing shelves of nostalgic and historical items in various places around Gladewater. These items eventually found a home in the Ellen Bauman Community Center building when the Gladewater Museum officially opened on Nov. 4, 2005.
This historic building was completed in 1939, just before its next-door neighbor, the Gladewater Post Office. Originally belonging to Gregg County, the building was later given to the City of Gladewater. Over the years, the building has hosted Meals on Wheels, square dances, school events, weddings and even the library.
As the museum stands today, it pays homage to prominent Gladewater figures such as Beth Bishop, who brought the antique shops to Gladewater; famed disc jockey and radio executive Tom Perryman; and Dick Burnett, owner of the Gladewater Bears minor league baseball team. Other interesting stories and artifacts fill the walls and rooms, offering a peek into different periods of the town’s history.
As Roddy walked through the rooms, describing the history of the museum and where certain items came from, the early-1900s handwritten logs of a local grocery store lay open on display. Roddy gently flipped through the old pages and talked about each family’s yearly purchases as if she knew them personally.
After speaking about the history of several prominent families in the town, Roddy laughed and said, “You came here to get the history of the museum, but instead I’ve given you the history of Gladewater.”
From stories of the KSIJ radio station to bedroom furniture brought to Gladewater in a covered wagon, patrons can learn about the history of this East Texas town by studying the relics that remain. “We let people touch things,” Roddy says, explaining that the museum is open for everyone to enjoy, not roped off or kept at arm’s length.
Families often bring their relatives to the museum during the holidays, when everyone is in town, to flip through the old yearbooks and to reminisce about days gone by. Other visitors are simply passing through and want to learn more about Gladewater.
“We had 109 third-graders from six different classes come to the museum,” Roddy says. This was especially meaningful because it was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that classes have come to visit – a tradition that once took place every year.
It’s easy to support the Gladewater Museum. Simply enjoying an admission-free visit with friends and family brings joy to the volunteers who work so hard to research and maintain this history. Donations are always welcome as well, helping to keep the lights on and ensuring that future generations can learn the history of Gladewater, Texas.
