National Museum Week
Remembering the Rails

The Paine-Gillam-Scott Museum in St. Johns is celebrating National Museum Week sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute on Saturday and Sunday, September 27^th and 28^th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Museum is joining the Clinton Northern Railway Museum in St. Johns , as well as Durand and Owosso in Remembering the Rails.

The Paine-Gillam-Scott Museum is listed in the September issue of the Smithsonian Magazine as a Museum in Michigan to visit during Annual Museum Day. Admission is Free for participating Museums. Docents at the PGS Museum will conduct tours of three buildings at the Museum Complex on the West Side of the Courthouse Square in St. Johns. Parking is available behind the Courthouse and on Maple Street in front of the Museum.

The PGS Museum offers a 1860 Historic House containing furnishings of the period, county history, early doctor’s office exhibit, military uniform sand accessories, a Thomas Edison exhibit, and a girl’s dream Doll House. The Museum will feature history of the Railroad and the Interurban that ran from St. Johns to Lansing during 1902 to 1929.

Behind the Museum is a former Doctor’s Office, used by three Doctors that lived in the main House from 1880 – 1935. The office was moved from the north side of the house, when the property was sold to the church next door, for a parking lot. The recently dedicated Swegles General Store and Post Office occupies the front part of that building and will be open for touring, as well as the back half, a 1950’s dentist office.

In the 1950’s a Dentist purchased the main house and the doctor’s office. The House became two apartments and the doctor’s office a dentist office. A retired dentist and friends have contributed to setting up a 1950’s office. We’re looking for a dental chair to complete the exhibit.

A carriage house is in the back of the property, which contains history of mint, milk, lumbering, and bicycles. Also, see the sleigh, buggy, farms tools, antique carpenter’s tools and a jig-saw that runs while pedaling like a bicycle. Young and old will enjoy a miniature mill operated by water power.