Cape Fear Museum prepares to move hundreds of artifacts to new downtown location

NEW HANOVER COUNTY (WWAY) — This is what remains of a dug-out canoe hand crafted by Native Americans, one of the many artifacts moving into the new home of the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science. 

Museum Curator, Heather Yenco, says there’s a lot more history to be unveiled. 

“This is a wash board from World War II.” 

Artifacts like these open up chapters to Wilmington’s past at the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science. 

The original location is placed inside a historic national guard armory and added expansions throughout the years. 

Now, the museum is making its official transition to a new home, rounding out the end of the “Project Grace.” 

The new location will feature engaging exhibits, museum classrooms, and a planetarium. 

Although the museum is relocating, Museum Director Kate Baillon says the current location will not be left empty. 

“We are expanding and this space will still be part of the museum. It’s where the collection will be housed, it’s where it’ll be cared for, it’s where we’ll have the historian and other folks who do the research. We’ll design the exhibits here, fabricate them here as well for our upcoming exhibits that we’ll be creating,” said Baillon. 

Baillon has a deep-rooted love for the museum and says that this move is bittersweet. 

“This space has been our home for many many years and yes, this is where we have grown with our community, where we’re comfortable and so it does make me feel a little sad in some ways but it is, we are having such an amazing opportunity with the new building, and we’ll be able to serve so many more people, and it will be a purpose-built building, so we are able to do so much more with that,” said Baillon. 

The new location will roll out the red carpet for a wide variety of new artifacts, over 400 of which have been pulled out of storage or taken off exhibit. 

Each artifact must be prepped for the move, from meticulous cleaning, stands, and tracing mounts, to ultimately be wrapped and packaged in boxes. 

“We trace the bottom of the artifact with Mylar so that there’s a barrier between the case and the artifact, so paint doesn’t stick to an artifact; and then, if they’re getting mounts, they’re going to sit aside and we have a mount maker that will be coming in to form mounts, like metal holdings around the artifacts,” said Yenco. 

Yenco works hands on with these artifacts and is thrilled to be able to share history in new, exciting ways. 

“It’s really exciting to be able to go through our collection of 59,000 artifacts, look to see the people connected to these objects, and what stories that they can tell, and then choosing a wide variety of people from this area and their objects in order to tell new and engaging stories,” said Yenco.