News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Crossville City Council helping with renovations to the Military Memorial Museum.
Museum President Mark Pfaffenroth said the extensive renovations have been a community effort since April of 2022. Pfaffenroth said the city offered financial assistance to help the museum with painting and moving a couple of furnace units.
“There are two back rooms upstairs and one of these furnaces is in the center of each one of the backrooms,” Pfafenroth said. “So if we move these furnaces back towards the wall, it will give us a lot more space for display in the future. Also, the furnaces when they were put in they are not properly vented and things like that.”
Pfaffenroth said he was waiting to do some renovations after the furnace units are moved as moving them could cause damage. Pfaffenroth said the donation was well-timed and will go a long way in furthering the renovations.
“They decided they wanted to help us out and they happen to reach out to us at a time when we really needed the extra funding,” Pfaffenroth said. “And so they are offering to help pay for the moving of the two furnaces, which is important to our finishing of phase one.”
Pfaffenroth said that since closing the museum in July for renovations, the museum has run into two major hitches.
“The state was requiring us to totally rewire the building,” Pfaffenroth said. “Some of the wiring in there was not up to code anymore. So that and then there was a main structural beam under the first floor that we thought was in good shape but it turned out that it was not and that’s gonna have to be replaced, so just those two projects came in at an extra $250,000 that we were not expecting and the county helped us out with that.”
Pfaffenroth said when the museum initially received $500,000 from Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, many people said the museum should find a new location instead of renovating the current building. Pfaffenroth said the building is one of the older buildings in Crossville and is in a good location.
