Palmer Museum of History & Art — Attraction in Palmer

Loved the volunteers and hearing stories they shared... ~ It took only 3 men to build the water tower in 5 days ~ There are underground tunnels that link most of the original buildings ~ Eleanor Roosevelt received a letter from the colonists asking for funding for a school. She made it her mission to build and fund the best school available at the time. Back then, many rural schools were small and went only to 8th grade. What's now the Mat-Su Borough building was the school Eleanor designed for the colony kids... with a theater, over 15 classrooms, and a kitchen to serve hot lunches to every child (which was one of the first schools to do this at the time). And, Roosevelt made sure that ALL other kids in the area could also attend at no cost.

Plus, free tea/coffee and cute gifts for all ages in the gift...

Wow, what a historic social project during the depression! I never heard of this "new town" experiment. I'm glad we had such a well spoken tour guide to relate his growing up in the settlement. I would definitely recommend you take the time to read all the displays about literally starting a community from scratch, organized by our federal government in Washington. 40 percent of the first 200 families remained in place after 10 years. Other families took the place of many who left. Today the community boasts...

When we arrived, the door was locked. I called, and the docent said that they were closed until 1pm, but she'd be happy to let us in since we were already there. She was so friendly and helpful, and we enjoyed chatting with her. The exhibits are very interesting and informative, and the gift shop has a lot of fun items. There was also an exhibition of art from local high school students, which was a nice extra....