"The only thing new is the history we don't know." Harry Truman
Welcome! Step back in time as you visit the North Platte Valley Museum in Gering, Nebraska, a private non-profit museum situated on the Oregon-California and Pony Express Trails, in the shadow of Scotts Bluff National Monument, 20 miles west of Chimney Rock.
Our museum tells the story of the plains Indians, fur traders, emigrant trails, and the early settlers of the North Platte River Valley in the western panhandle of Nebraska.
We have more than 20 professionally designed exhibits in our 10,000 sq ft. gallery.
Outside the main building are authentic sod and log houses built in the late 1800s. The homes are partially furnished with items belonging to the families who lived in them. If weather and staffing permit, you may get a tour inside these homes.
The North Platte Valley Museum archive is home to the Paul & Helen Henderson Oregon Trail Collection, one of the most extensive research collections of trail materials ever assembled.
Stop by the museum. You will enjoy your visit.
You may also follow the museum on Twitter or like us on Facebook. Feel free to share with us the photos you took on your museum visit. We love to see which parts of the museum our visitors have enjoyed!
A message to our supporters
We at the North Platte Valley Museum have received several questions recently about a Gering craigslist ad that is offering to sell the “Oregon Trail Museum Collection.” We wish to clarify that this sale of antique items is from a private museum that has no relationship to the North Platte Valley Museum.
We also wish to emphasize that because we are a nonprofit organization operating for public benefit, we have a much different obligation with respect to our collection than a private museum has. When we as a public trust museum accept an item into our collection, we are assuming an obligation to use that item for the public benefit. In the case of the North Platte Valley Museum, the public purpose of our mission is to preserve history and teach people about that history through exhibits and demonstrations and by maintaining a research collection.
On occasion, we may determine that it is no longer in the public interest for us to continue to expend our limited resources to care for an object, such as when duplicates of an item are donated or when an object is determined not to fit the museum’s mission. In that case, a very stringent procedure is followed. A recommendation is made to the museum’s Board of Directors to remove the item from the collection. If the board approves removing the item from the collection, the disposition of that item follows our collections policy. The first two avenues are to offer the item back to the original donor or offer the item to other public trust organizations. Only if the first two options fail would we consider selling an item. If an item is sold, the proceeds from that sale are put into a restricted fund that can only be used for the benefit of the collection, such as for conservation needs or acquisition of artifacts – NOT for operating funds or building projects.
Please feel free to call the museum if you have any questions.
North Platte Valley Museum P.O. Box 435. 900 Overland Trails Road . 11th & J . Gering, NE 69341 . 308-436-5411 . npvm@earthlink.net
Copyright 2011 North Platte Valley Historical Association. All rights reserved.
