New Building Would Provide Room for Putnam History

Putnam County is considering housing the county’s archives and veteran’s museum in the future site of the Patton Doll House Museum.

Mayor Randy Porter said the county has hired an architect to look at design drawings to see what will fit in the new building. Porter said it is an exciting possibility to have more space for the county’s archives and more room for guests at the veteran’s museum.

“As bad as it was for the old building to be destroyed, it gives us an opportunity to be able to build a new building and make it much better for everyone,” Porter said. “We get a lot of visitors coming to the veteran’s museum and so forth, but in the tight space it’s in… With the new building it will just make it much better and I think we’ll get a lot more people that will be interested in coming and visiting.”

Porter said the county will have to pay upfront and then FEMA will reimburse about $300,000 for the building lost to the March tornado. Porter said there have been some bricks sold for a new building, thanks to donations before the FEMA reimbursement comes in.

“We’ve got some folks that have donated over the years to a new building that would be built,” Porter said. “We may expand on that, we’ve got about $28,000 worth of donations that has been given that we’ll probably work that into the building.”

Porter said this building would go up at the same location on West Broad Street. He said there is also a possibility of bringing in two Veteran’s Service Officers could go into the new location.