Huntsville spends over $1 million annually marketing itself to tourists. Why is it hiding one of its crown jewels?

The previous two articles in this series revealed a mother lode of art in museums located in historic buildings largely along University Ave. south of downtown Huntsville. Relatively few Huntsvillans have been inside.

This article tells you why. It turns out getting inside these museums is easy – it's finding out about them that is hard.

Come on in

What is it like to visit these museums?

Well, for one thing, it's free. Your money is no good with George Russell, the local art collector who put these museums together. He explains, “They’ve always been free admission. I don’t believe in anyone charging admission to any museum in the world, because that prohibits the poor children from having any exposure, and I think it’s just wrong.”

Anna Shepeard, then-Director of the Texas Division of the Children of the Confederacy, raved about her visit to several of Russell's museums in a 2015 letter to the Huntsville Item. "I have been to hundreds of museums and have never seen so many Texas items housed under one roof," she said.

She's not the only one. Former Wynne Home director Linda Pease visited Russell's museums often and says, "among some of the less-traveled museums [in town] are several...that George Russell has established in historic homes.  The collections are splendid and well worth the time to see and appreciate the extraordinary work that has been done." 

Former assistant city engineer Tom Weger has also spent hours in Russell's museums. He puts it bluntly. "The quality of stuff he's got in there is unbelievable."

So what is getting in the way?

You can't visit what you don't know about

One reason is the marketing. While Russell's foundation's website lists all of his museums, they are not extensively marketed. Fortunately, the City of Huntsville has budgeted over one million dollars this year to promote itself to tourists. Despite this, you'd hardly know these museums exist.

None of them can be found on the city-run tourism website HuntsvilleTexas.com. Its old museum page listed two of them, but a redesign turned that listing into an "orphan," unreachable from within the site, and removed entries for the Museum of Texas Arts and the Museum of Texas Furniture.

All of Russell's museums also lie within Huntsville’s state-sanctioned "Cultural District," pictured below. Nonetheless, they are omitted from the city's Cultural District web site and tour guide, which is sixteen years old and out of date in several respects.

What if you stop at the city's Visitor Center by the big Sam Houston statue on the interstate? The Huntsvillan tried that. Nothing doing.

The Huntsvillan: I wanted to ask about art museums in Huntsville.

Visitor Center Staff: It's not really a museum, but we have the Wynne Home. Let me get you a flier.

TH: I heard there were some old houses between downtown and campus with art collections.

VCS: You're thinking of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum (produces flier). There are some old buildings there and they will have some quilts and things from the past.

TH: What about John Smither or George Russell? Do they have art collections?

VCS: (Mentions Splintercraft art supply store downtown.) You can look for Smither Realty. I think he has some art on Sam Houston Ave.

TH: What about George Russell?

VCS: I know who you're talking about, but I don't know how to reach him.

The private sector does little better. The Huntsville Item published just one brief article on just one of Russell's museums (though they are also noted in several letters to the editor, often from Russell, and in Best Bets). Only one shows up on Google Maps (which lists several non-museums as well).

TripAdvisor mentions the Children’s Museum, which is now closed to the public, while TourTexas.com lists two others on yet another orphaned page. Unless you already know about these museums, you would hardly realize they exist.

Huntsville is, in fact, a museum town

These omissions are unfortunate, because Huntsville's museum density is off the charts.

Under even the most conservative count, Russell has seven museums.^[1] There are seven others: the Cultural Center on 10th St., the Sam Houston Museum along Sam Houston Ave., the Veterans and Prison museums out by the interstate, the Gibbs-Powell House and Cafe Texan museums downtown, and Sam Houston State's natural history collection in the old high school.

That gets you to 14 total, with one more coming later this year, for a total of 15.^[2] Given our population (prisoners included), this equates to 30 museums per 100,000 people. On a per person basis, that beats the tar out of everywhere else in East Texas. It's well above Washington, D.C., which has only 17 per 100,000 people. Indeed, it is one of the highest concentrations in the United States.

In fact, even medium-sized Texas cities struggle to compete with Huntsville, which has more museums outright than Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock – even El Paso.

Pease gets it. Huntsville, she says, has "a treasury of outstanding museums – history centers as well as those with a focus on arts and culture." Add in a generous helping of art galleries to boot, and the city ranks high culturally by any standard.

The city also keeps this distinction secret. Only five museums are included on its tourism site and visitor's guide, obscuring our preeminence in this realm.

And not just museums. Thanks in part to Russell's efforts and in part to its age, Huntsville excels in history, too. With Russell's houses along University Avenue, the Sam Houston Homestead and Museum, Austin Hall on the SHSU campus (built in 1857, it is the oldest continuously occupied college building west of the Mississippi River), Oakwood Cemetery, and the Wynne and Gibbs-Powell homes along 11th St., Huntsville has a historical portfolio few Texas towns can match.

Other cities with such history feature it prominently, but not Huntsville, which merely lists a few historic sites on the same page as its museums. Our preeminence here is also obscured.

The city's tourism tag line – "Pure Texas" – applies to every town in Texas. Why downplay your distinctions in favor of something so generic? The Huntsvillan reached out to Huntsville City Manager Scott Swigert to inquire about these issues with city's tourism marketing, but he did not respond.

We'll get you in

Another reason these museums aren't better known is that they aren't routinely open. Pease and Weger both mentioned this fact in their comments to The Huntsvillan.

This being said, in the past, arranging a visit required only a call or email to Russell, via the contact information on his foundation's website. Pease calls him "a knowledgeable guide." Nonetheless, if you don't know to ask, you don't ask.

Occasionally, the museums were also opened during Art Walks or the Fair on the Square. Five were included in a 2018 Art Walk organized by the SHSU Art Department. But these are not common in town. The first Art Walk since that one in 2018 is scheduled for next month.

These days, it is not as easy for Russell to give tours of his museums, so he has welcomed The Huntsvillan to facilitate tours. If you are interested, instructions are in the grey box below. As more people catch wind of these hidden gems and visit them, it may become viable for Russell to open them more regularly.

This is your opportunity to experience the full range of culture Huntsville has to offer with others who share similar interests in art and history. There is no guarantee that these free cultural resources will always be present and easy to see. 

^[1] In this count, there is only one museum per building and the museum must not be closed to the public. A more generous count gets you to twelve. Museum-counting is a tricky business and there is no authoritative list, but even under generous assumptions few cities top Huntsville.

^[2] We'd tell you, but we'd hate to spoil the surprise. There are also loooong-range plans for a sixteenth museum, which may or may not ever materialize.