Scenery Storage
There was another growing concern and one that had started prior to my Fort Scott departure; locating a climate-controlled rental facility to store the new acquisition. All of my initial estimates suggested that finding a space to store the scenery would be difficult at best. Not because these units were non-existent, but because of the logistics of navigating 25’ long rolls into a storage bay. I also had come to the conclusion that we would need a minimum of two storage units – each holding a 6’-0” x 8’-0” custom constructed system with 12” x 12” slots to accommodate each tube. This design was similar to the one that I had used for the Winona Scottish Rite scenery project in 2014.
In September, I provided technical drawings to the CEO for the construction of the storage units. He contracted Outhouse Exhibit Services, the same company that was hired to build all MMHC museum displays, and would eventually be hired to restore the Fort Scott scenery collection. The owner’s husband would go on to build and install the two storage racks units prior to my arrival with the drops.
One of my greatest challenges was to delegating certain responsibilities without any supportive staff. Since starting my part-time position as Curatorial Director on June 1, 2015, I was consistently working 50 hours or more each week on the project, not 30.
I needed to find someone to assume the responsibilities concerning locating storage units for the incoming scenery collection since I was going to be in Fort Scott. This aspect of the Fort Scott acquisition would become the only part of the entire endeavor that I did not directly oversee – and I would regret having delegated it to anyone else. During August of 2015, I handed off the responsibility to locate a storage facility for the drops to the general director at MMHC.
On October 8, he confirmed locating a climate-controlled storage unit in Bloomington, MN. It was a secure space, measuring 10’ x 30’, that had drive up access for the cost of $445 per month. I immediately reminded him that we would need at least two of these units as the entire collection could not fit in a single space. As mentioned, I was concerned with navigating the 25’ tubes into the storage rack. I specified the need to back a 30’ vehicle adjacent to the door of the storage unit and directly unload the drops into each storage system.
After arriving in Fort Scott, I engaged in a daily ritual of asking the MMHC general director for pictures of the storage unit to pass along to BellaTex, LLC. His standard response was “Don’t worry about it.” Out of growing concern to be able to provide the necessary information to the transportation crew, I ended up reaching out to the Outhouse Exhibit carpenter who would inspect the storage units prior to constructing the storage units. Clearly, in order to effectively proceed, he would need to take measurements of the space and would subsequently verify whether the storage units would work or not.
On November 12, I received the following email from the Outhouse Exhibit Services’ carpenter:
“Hello all,
The length of the drops while rolled up is 25 feet. It will be difficult to turn them into the space as things are configured at that location because you would need to turn them in a 22 foot wide space…”
(The 22′ wide space, adjacent to the storage unit)
(The narrow door on the storage unit)
This news was a harbinger of catastrophe as we now had no space to store the scenery. The project was nearing completion. We had removed the majority of the scenes and were preparing to roll the drops for transportation. The scenery would arrive in Minnesota on Monday, November 24, or earlier. It was a terrible situation for all involved and there was no solution in sight.
To be continued…
Below are images depicting our progress in Fort Scott on November 11, 2015. They show drops that have been removed from the lines and are waiting to be rolled onto cardboard tubes and wooden battens.
