The Noah's Ark display has been a gem to the Lima community for more than a hundred years and with this newer exhibit community members say they look forward to celebrating its history.
“This is such a great example of a really unique piece of community heritage,” said David Berger, City of Lima mayor.
More than a hundred community members attended the unveiling of the refurbished Noah's Ark display at the Allen County Museum.
The Noah's Ark display, which was created by James Grosjean, has been viewed by thousands of people since being donated to the museum more than 80 years ago.
“It was always one of those really interesting things that they could come in and I think the fact that it’s animated, it has motion and has stuff that’s happening,” said Amy Craft, the Allen County Museum executive director. “It’s just one of those curiosity cabinets that are so unique for the time period.”
The director of the museum said it was a true disappoint to the community when the display eventually stopped working, but with help of a few museum docents and a $5000 donation from Nutrien - two years later the display is now back up and running.
“It’s the number one item that older people ask about when they bring their grandkids or great-grandkids to the museum. So it had to be done,” said Mark Billingsley, an Allen County Museum docent. “There’s no doubt about it. It had to be done.”
Craft said this is a project that the group did an excellent job on.
“Ultimately their goal was really to make it more sustainable and longer lasting and I think they were really successful in doing that,” she said.
The docents said they are extremely proud of the finished product and appreciative of the community support.
“This has really made it all worthwhile,” said Billingsley. “We knew people were going to come and see this. We didn’t know how many would be here and once people know that this is back out again we’re going to have a lot of people come and see this. They’ll bring their grandkids. It’s really nice.”
