The Missouri Civil War Museum was presented a $2,100 grant by the National Trust for Historic Preservation from the Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation.
The seed grant funds will be used to help support the costs of architectural drawings needed for the final phase of the museum building’s restoration, including handicap accessibility and public restrooms.
National Trust for Historic Preservation Acting President David Brown stated, “With these funds, the Missouri Civil War Museum joins the National Trust for Historic Preservation and hundreds of other communities and organizations across the country actively working to protect and preserve the important places that tell the story of America.”
The Missouri Civil War Museum is restoring the historic 1905 Post Exchange Building at the Jefferson Barracks Historic Site to create a new adaptive reuse as a museum and library educational complex.
The building has been abandoned since 1946 and suffered from decades of neglect.
Restoration work began in 2003 and the museum is now 70 percent complete.
Copies of the original blueprint drawings from 1903 were used to guide the first phase of the historic restoration. The modern architectural drawings will be used to plan and build the necessary accommodations for modern code compliance such as handicap accessibility and utilities for the final phase of the building restoration to prepare it for opening to the public.