Slated for preservation

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
8/14/06

For years, Mary Lou Willits was haunted by the "graveyard of machinery" on the grounds of the Slate Valley Museum in Granville.

Willits became director of the museum about six years ago, and has been brainstorming ever since about ways to protect and utilize the pieces of 19th-century slate-quarrying equipment donated to the collection by a local quarry.

The machinery is too large and unwieldy to bring into the museum building, so it sits outside, exposed to the elements.

In 2004, her brainstorm burst into a solution when the museum received a $160,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Scenic Byways program to construct a year-round visitor and interpretive center.

Combined with an additional $40,000 that the museum is still raising, the money will also fund an addition to shelter the machinery and turn it into an interactive "heavy lifting" exhibit, Willits said.

"The exhibit will be about the human and technological history of moving slate to market," she explained. "We want to include opportunities for people to actually move things, lift things, using the advantage of simple machines ... maybe roll a cart of slate along a track."

The museum will also add a covered picnic area facing the Mettowee River, providing a resting point to hikers, bikers, skiiers and other people using the Lakes to Locks Passage -- a national scenic byway that runs along the common waterways of New York, Vermont, and Quebec.

As they picnic, they will be able to learn about the history of the area -- called the Slate Valley Corridor -- from interpretive panels and literature provided by the museum.

The Scenic Byways grant was an ideal opportunity, because it fulfilled the goals of many parties at once, said Willits.

The museum has been working with other community members to help develop the Village of Granville Comprehensive Plan and a Lakes to Locks corridor management plan.

The project is still in the design phase, but construction is to begin next spring and be completed by 2008.

"We're pretty excited about it," Willits said. "We see this as another opportunity to tell the story of the industry. Slate had a huge impact, not only economically, but culturally, in this region."
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IF YOU GO
The Slate Valley Museum, 17 Water St., Granville, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.Admission is $4 for adults; free for age 12 and younger and slate company employees and their families.For more information, see www.slatevalleymuseum.org or call 642-1417.