By Stephen Smoot
Since its conception, the stately two story brick building on the corner of Bridge and Pike Street with the flattened corner associated with 19th and early 20th century banking has served as a hub and part of the brain of the community.
In its early years, the building served as home of the First National Bank. The Indiana limestone and pressed brick facade bespoke permanence and style for the bank that opened its doors in 1910. As historian Bobby Bice noted in his article on the bank last February, “when the Wall Street stock market crashed in October 1929, the First National Bank of Shinnston lost its capital” and disappeared into history.
Approximately 70 years later, the venerable structure found a new sense of purpose. As it had served as a center of financial and economic activity, it would ever since host the Bice-Ferguson Museum. Where it once served as a center of finance, it would now find a new role as a repository of Shinnston’s memory and as a center of community culture.
The current chapter of the building’s existence focuses on its home to the Bice Ferguson Museum. According to Deb Herndon, who has provided both invaluable service and leadership over the decades, “the concept of the Museum began with H. Donald Bice and Lota (Ferguson) Bice.”
As Herndon wrote in a commemorative article for the Shinnston News in 2022, “Mrs. Bice envisioned a museum at the old high school run by the Shinnston Historical Association.” While it would have served as a focal point for area history and nostalgia, especially with the continuing tradition of the Shinnston High School annual reunions, “the high school was not available and the Historical Association did not feel they had the resources to embark on such a project.”
With such a worthy project underway in a city so devoted to its history and traditions, organizers found another option for the proposed museum.
The Bice family combined efforts with the City of Shinnston, which passed an ordinance creating a Board of Museums. This entity employs a museum director and administers the property, which the Bice family purchased in 2004. They also “provided funds for a complete restoration.”
As Herndon described, that detailed and lovingly performed restoration included “new floors, walls, electric,” and also the ceiling and more. Mr. and Mrs. Bice’s generosity did not end there. Upon their passing, they bequeathed funds to both the City of Shinnston and the Shinnston Historical Association to ensure in perpetuity that the facility would offer a home to both exhibits and also cultural events.
One of the most interesting exhibits comes from Bice himself. He worked for the phone company during a time when it replaced old, and often original, wall mounted wooden boxes with the hard plastic Western Electric company rotary phones of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Bice kept the antique phones.
These emerged later as the core of a collection of vintage telephones, added to by the Telephone Pioneers and others over the years. Donations also included a full switchboard that helps visitors to imagine person-to-person communication in bygone times.
Bice family involvement did not end with the passing of the Museum’s founders. Historian Bobby Bice, a life member of the Museum, accepted a Board position in 2022. Over the years, others have donated priceless and irreplaceable items to the Museum, giving it both a deep and broad coverage of local and area history. This includes the top floor, renovated in 2009. Herndon stated that “a partnership between the Shinnston Alumni was established and now the walls are hung with group pictures of every graduating class.”
The upper floor is also packed with memorabilia, yearbooks, photographs, and even varsity jackets from different eras. It served as a favorite stop during the Shinnston annual reunions.
Modern museums do not only house relics that stir memories of the past. They also host events to build new experiences and memories while educating about the past. For example, over the years the Museum partnered with the West Virginia Humanities Council to present History Alive events. In 2012, an actress playing Hallie Marie in “Coal Camp Memories” gave multiple performances. The Museum this year will sponsor a November 16 portrayal of the activist Mother Jones at the Shinnston Women’s Club.
In recent years, the Museum has also hosted quilt shows, exhibits of local artists, and other events that draw heavily from both residents and visitors alike. A veritable army of volunteers and support from other community organizations enables the Museum to continue to open its doors to the public and also provide educational and fun events.
Herndon, the fifth paid director of the Museum, welcomes inquiries via call or text at (304) 677-6650. The Museum remains open from May to October on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
