Grover Museum

The Grover Museum does a remarkable job of preserving artifacts and stories from Shelby County. My favorite exhibit includes the mock stores that showcase 100+ year old goods and furniture from the local barbershop, drugstore, butcher shop, telephone operators and more. Visitors can walk through quickly with kids and talk about technology and people of the past. I stopped by the museum to get information about the local courthouse. I was greeted by Sarah Richardt, the new curator of the museum. Sarah told me what I could find in the museum and offered to arrange for me to meet with a local judge to discuss the courthouse. Wow! (The people in Shelby county are the nicest.) A timeline exhibit, archives the names and dates for the building and history of Shelbyville and the county. I was able to find information I needed here. The railroad room has a working toy train and stories about the local railroad. Downstairs, historical information about local industry and technology are described. There is a small gift shop at the front of the museum. The building is old with stairs, but there is a rear entrance near an elevator for wheelchairs and strollers. The museum hosts a summer camp and other activities throughout the year. There are play/learning areas set up throughout the facility Admission is free to the museum and donations accepted. There is free street parking outside. Public restrooms are available.Grover Museum is one of the best small town museums that I have visited.

Really nice people and a very cool way of displaying antiques to capture the history of the town. The museum doesn't have the budget to compete with big city places, but their "Streets of Old Shelby" is a clever way to assemble a large number of items by the type of business they would be found in. You can stroll through brick streets and look through windows into a variety of shops, a church, and a school. They have a livery stable and a blacksmith shop, a drug store with a soda shop, a millinery and a saloon. Each is stocked with actual items that have been gathered for the exhibit.The rest of the museum features more traditional exhibits. There's a display for war veterans. There's a room with a scale model train that allows a lot of train history for Shelbyville to have a theme for display.In the basement seemed to be a catch all of items like basketball teams, antique organs, Native American artifacts, and a small exhibit honoring the "twin cities" connection with a place in Japan. Not great on their own, but on display, none the less.What I really want to point out is that the staff who run the place are very thoughtful and caring. I had called early in the morning to be sure they were open. So I got on the road. Something had come up and they were going to have to close early, but when they knew I was on my way, they agreed to hold the museum just for me since I had an hour long trip. I don't think most places would do that. They did. That's customer service for someone who doesn't even live in their town. I really appreciated their willingness to accommodate my visit to Shelbyville and allowing me to drop in. It's not always about what is on display.Review #2269

So the Grover Museum gets 5 stars for what it is. It's not a mega museum like the Children's Museum or the State Museum. It's a small town museum. But it's probably the best small town museum I've ever been in.Took the family there yesterday for root beer floats on the old timey street. The first floor exhibits include a huge model train with corresponding dioramas showing key points about the history of the railroad in Indiana and Shelbyville. My sons really enjoyed watching the model trains. There's also currently a car exhibit overflowing with old hot wheels and other neat collectibles cars that are sure to be of interest to younger car fans. The big highlight is the old timey street exhibit. The Grover Museum has procured authentic pieces from many different local sources to craft a fairly large street scene from circa 1910. You can walk the cobblestone streets of old Shelbyville, window shopping at the local butcher or dress shop or perusing the church, jail, post office and more! And the soda fountain was open with volunteers offering free root beer floats every third Saturday of the month from 11am to 3pm. It's a really impressive exhibit well worth checking out.Finally in the basement there's been an ongoing quilt competition since at least the 80s. Some of the handmade quilts are truly stunning, even to those of us like me who have never really cared about quilts.The Grover Museum's a great free stop for the family if you've got a third Saturday of the month to burn and are in the mood to time travel.

This is a neat lil museum for our small town to have in it. Its much larger than it seems from the road. They have quite a few old machines from when Shelbyville was first becoming a city. A lot of hard work and dedication went into the creation of the small rebuilt town, built inside the museum, for everyone's exploration. They also have an extensive model train and train memorabilia collection.They are located across the street from the local public library and this would make a great place for elementary school teachers to bring their class full of children to give them a look into what it was like living over 100 years ago. I especially liked the large cash register with all the crazy buttons and levers on it and just image that being high tech back in the day for businesses to use in retail stores.

A GREAT small-town museum! As others mentioned, the "Streets of Old Shelby" exhibit is an interesting condensed exhibit of a small town from the late 1800s/early 1900s.They have recently remodeled the lower level sections to focus on a photography studio from many years ago and see the town through their lens (literally). They also created a new interactive exhibit that includes both the natural history of the area and the manufacturing history. Both areas of focus pull in personal stories and connections as you learn and discover. The sister city exhibit that educates about their sister city of Shizuoka, Japan is equally insightful with statistics and an interactive chance to make your own block print.The upstairs features interactive components while educating on the history of Shelbyville's downtown square and how it has changed through time.The museum is FREE and supported by donations so please contribute if you enjoyed your time! An interesting stop off the main road of sites. A 2-3 hour visit would allow you to see most exhibits but one could spend longer.

This Museum is really interesting! There are two floors of things to check out, all pertaining to Shelbyville. They have many pictures, Native American artifacts, business history, photography history, train history, and a little mini town in this museum. And it's free! We go about once a year and always enjoy ourselves!