This is going to be a mini-review for a mini-museum. I was just thinking, “Oh man, I haven’t been to a museum in a while, which means I’m slacking on my new year’s resolution to visit more museums!” I was thinking of what I might be able to cram in sometime soon, but honestly wasn’t really feeling anything. Then today, serendipity hit. This morning I ran a trail race in Gaithersburg, Maryland. My husband likes to go to local breweries after there races, whereas I am sleep and caffeine deprived after these things (plus I hate breweries.) Our compromise is that I drop him off at the brewery and find someplace to get coffee, which puts me in a much better mood and allows me to better tolerate sitting in a cold weird-smelling room with a bunch of day drinkers. After parking my car and husband at Saints Row brewing (husband’s review: “It was pretty good.”) I walked a couple minutes to nearby Java Junction, which was also pretty good. Here’s a photo:
Java Junction is a cute little spot with a super adorable location. It’s attached to the Gaithersburg Train Station in Old Town Gaithersburg. I am moderately familiar with the area, being it’s proximity to Rockville (home to the DC Latvian church, my home away from home), and was familiar with this particular adorable little old-timey train station due to having disembarked here once. I knew it had an old-timey train behind it. What I hadn’t noticed before, though, was that one of the small buildings at the station had a giant sign (or was it a flag? Can’t remember) that said MUSEUM. “Ooh!” I thought. “If I go in there I can knock a museum off my list! And it looks small enough that I could probably knock it out in ten minutes! And my husband will appreciate that because I’m sure he’d love having an extra 10 minutes to sit and sip his beer flight without me whining about how much I want to go home!” And so, in I went. And that’s how I’ve come to review the Gaithersburg Community Museum.
First up, a few more notes on the location. The museum is located on what is apparently called the Gaithersburg History Park. In addition to the working old-timey train station, there is also a locomotive and a caboose on display. Beyond that there’s a splash park, which surprisingly only had 2 kids playing in it on this crazy freaking hot afternoon. One thing that quickly became apparent is that this museum is probably aimed mostly at kids. The signage outside warns splash park kids to not come inside if they’re soaked. I didn’t have them open up the caboose for me (which, according to the signage, I could have requested), but I did nab a quick glance through the window and noticed it was decked out as a toddler playroom, not as anything historic. And inside, well… we’ll get to the inside.
At the entrance, I totally startled an employee who was on her way out and seemed shocked to see someone trying to actually enter her museum. She warned me that their air condition had broken, so it was crazy hot inside and they would likely be shutting down in a few minutes. I glanced in at the size of the one-room museum and thought, “Perfect. A few minutes is all I need.”
In the middle of the room was a counter where a second employee sat. I glanced around uncertain what to do next, then asked her if this was the entire museum and if there’s an entrance fee or anything else I should know. She also seemed slightly surprised, but pleasantly so. She pointed out the main display areas, and told me which 2 items I’m not allowed to touch (one is the telescope in the foreground in the picture above._ Everything else was fair game to be messed with. I thanked her and decided to start off in the schoolroom area.
The museum is small but mighty. It’s divided up into 4 or 5 main areas covering different Gaithersburg-related topics (school system, general store, bank, observatory, and… maybe another one?). Each area had a wall display with several dry but concise paragraphs about the topic. These informative displays were clearly aimed at adults, and while honestly I only skimmed them (full disclosure- I spent less time in the museum than I’ve spent so far writing this review), I found them informative. To my own surprise, I’ve already used a couple of my newly-gained Gaithersburg-related knowledge in conversation! Specifically: Did you know that the president of Sears and Roebuck was responsible for building thousands of black school during reconstruction, including the ones in Gaithersburg? (google Rosenwald Schools- they were a collaboration with Booker T. Washington.) Also, in the early days of telephones, there was a housefire in Gaithersburg that shut down all telephone communication in the town.
As an adult, I think I could have spent probably about an hour tops carefully reading through everything in the entire museum. 30 minutes would be pretty realistic. There’s not really that much to really see, and it wouldn’t be worth making a trip for it, or paying an extravagant entrance free. But that’s not really what this place is meant to be. It’s a relatively small museum dedicated to a relatively small community, it’s free of charge, and it’s a neat little nook that’s worth your time if you’re in the area.
But, as I said before, I think this place is mostly geared towards kids. There’s a little notice that encourages visitors to request a tour, but I would bet good money those tours are kids tours. There was lots of old-timey stuff laying all over the place that kids could mess with. I’m not talking about expertly-crafted science museum exhibits, but more like playroom stuff that all could go really well with some solid age-appropriate history lectures. Stuff to keep kids busy, exploring, and questioning. The first clue was a little fitness course outside entitled “Train Like an Astronaut!” that instructed kids to do various exercises on the ramp to the museum (I did the “run backwards” section as a walk, then called it a day in case any other adults spotted me.) Inside, like I said before, I was straight-up told that I can touch and mess with anything I want, and they let me in with a full iced coffee and a cookie.
My personal favorite display was a typewriter that had a sign next to it that said, “How to Use a Typewriter.” That got an audible laugh from me, which again startled the employee whose desk was right behind the display. I told her that the idea of not knowing a typewriter because it’s so ancient was funny, and she chuckled and told me, “But the kids LOVE it!” Then she pointed to the rotary phone above it and said, “They REALLY love this thing! None of them have ever seen anything like it before!” Amazing. I, in turn, tried clicking away at the telegraph machine, which seemed to be broken. And OMG, as I look at my photo of this area posted below, I’m just now noticing the sign that says, “PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.” Oh crap. I really hope the sign refers to the stuff on the counter and not on the kids’-level desk below… crapcrapcrapcrapmovingon!
In conclusion: I’m checking out the museum website now, and it looks like they offer “Ever-changing weekly activities and monthly programs make the Museum an interactive space for all ages.” Well that sounds awesome. If you live in the area and are looking for a free way to entertain your kids for a little while, I would definitely recommend this little gem. You can read up about old-timey racism while your toddler destroys an old-timey cash register! Just make sure you hit up the splash park AFTER the museum, not before.
Helga without the H 