Chandler moves ahead on expanding history museum

• Chandler will begin seeking architects to design the new building
• The $4 million project is expected to open to the public in 2018
• The new facility will create space for historical items now relegated to storage

Just a short stroll west from one of Chandler’s first monuments to the 21st Century stands a historic monument from the century before.

Dignified in its sprawling Pueblo-revival style of architecture, the 77-year-old McCullough-Price House beckons as a quiet respite for the droves of visitors flocking to the 14-year-old Chandler Fashion Center across the street, or any of the many restaurants and stores located in other nearby power centers.

The 3,300-square-foot house is current home to the city’s Historical Museum. In a few years, if the city of Chandler’s vision and planned funding stay the course, it also will include a new, 10,000-square-foot museum on the site. It will house an array of Chandler historic artifacts and visiting exhibits that can’t be fully accommodated at the current museum.

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The city, in coming months, will issue a request for proposals seeking an architectural firm to design a new historical museum, which would be built on the north side of the McCullough-Price House, at the northwest corner of Frye Road and Chandler Village Drive. Chandler Village Drive is a loop road that circles the mall, which opened in 2001.

The city hopes to have the design take place in the next year and have construction begin in 2017, with the new museum opening the following year, said Brenda Brown, Chandler’s cultural affairs director.

Among the city’s expectations will be that any design compliment the historic structure it will be built alongside, Brown said.

The project cost is about $4 million, with about $366,000 set aside for the design. The Chandler City Council set aside money for the construction in its 5-year Capital Improvement Project budged adopted in June. Funding will come from bonds approved by voters in two different elections, in 2004 and 2007, Brown said.

“It’s a testimony to the fact that Chandler values its history,” Brown said. “People who have been here a long time and people who are new to our community.”

A ‘hub’ with historic roots

The new building really is viewed as a museum “hub,” said Jody Crago, the city’s museum administrator — the physical presence around which the city’s online history site, Chandlerpedia.com, and its many field programs will revolve.

“Even though you can see it online, there’s some reason why people want to see the real photo, they want to see the real object. They want to experience it personally. That’s what the museum hub is,” he said.

Various city voices have talked about a new museum for several decades, long before the existing museum moved into the McCullough-Price House from a downtown location in 2012.

“Chandler has been talking about a new museum since the mid 1980s,” Crago said. “There have been countless community members who have worked for this. The Historical Society, countless city staff and elected official pushed for this, so this is really the culmination of all that.”

The effort also comes with a tip of the historic cap to two 20th Century business leaders, whose names are attached to the current museum.

William McCullough and Arthur Price were instrumental in the history of the house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

McCullough, an auto parts manufacturer, was a regular winter visitor who stayed at the San Marcos Hotel in Chandler. In 1937, he commissioned the Phoenix architecture firm of Lesher and Mahoney to build him the house on land that was part of 600 acres he leased and grew cotton on. He lived in the house until his death, after which it was briefly owned by a family who never occupied the it. The San Marcos leased it to visitors in the 1940s, and in 1950, it was purchased by Price, who was a business partner of city founder A.J. Chandler.

Price, who owned and farmed vast acreage around the Chandler area, lived with his wife in the house until their deaths in the 1970s, Crago said.

After land owned by the Price family was sold to the developer of the Chandler Fashion Center, the city was able to acquire the Price home and land that now is Price Park to the west of the McCullough-Price House. It first was opened to the public for tours in 2007, five years before the museum was relocated to the home.

Making room for history

About half of the McCullough-Price House is dedicated to rooms with historical displays. Other areas are used for archive storage and offices. The house retains most of the original materials and details from when it first was built, including the flooring tiles and wooden ceiling beams inside and out.

“We touch on Chandler history in the exhibits here, and then we have the research center, where we hold all of the historic material — archival, photographs and oral histories that the city holds,” Crago said. “We get a lot of winter visitors, we get a lot of tourists. The traffic by the mall is very advantageous. But there are a lot of people that drive by it and say, ‘What’s in that building?’ ”

Visitors are able to view panels and some original artifacts at the museum. Some displays allow a visitor to scan a code with their smart phone, leading them to more information on the Chandlerpedia page.

“Those panels are intended to sort of be a doorway, or a portal to the vast history that is Chandler,” Crago said. “We don’t have a lot of space currently, that’s why we’re excited about the museum, but this sort of is a way to maximize that space.’ ”

Among the items in storage are an original desk used by A.J. Chandler, historic clothing items, and other pieces used by the early police and fire departments. Some of the collection, such as the 1925 Dodge coupe owned by Chandler, which is in the San Marcos Hotel lobby, is on display elsewhere.

The new museum will have enough space to house visiting exhibits from other museums, such as the Smithsonian, Brown said, as well as art exhibits.

Already, the museum conducts numerous field programs, such as walking tours of downtown, educational events at Tumbleweed Ranch in downtown Chandler and a speakers series held at city libraries. Those all will continue to be an integral part of what the museum is, Brown said.

As for the new building itself, the city hopes to find a way to increase its visibility off of Chandler Village Drive, where rows of trees shield it from passing cars and motorists can easily miss the small blue signs pointing to the museum.

About McCullough-Price House Museum

Location: 300 S. Chandler Village Drive, southwest of Chandler Fashion Center.

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Entry is free of charge.

Contact: 480-782-2717 or online at chandleraz.gov/museum

About Chandlerpedia.com

The site is a comprehensive storehouse of Chandler’s history. Online visitors can can browse photos, documents, oral histories and stories from the Chandler Museum collection. The site includes an archive the Chandler Arizonan newspaper, which was published from the year of the city’s founding in 1912 to 1986. Visitors also will find online exhibits at the site.