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Date: 5/23/2023
AGAWAM — It’s mid-morning on a Monday and a handful of volunteers are sifting through and sorting thousands of artifacts and papers in the Agawam Historical and Firehouse Museum. The museum opened in 2002 with items and documents dating back to the 1600s, centuries before founders broke away from West Springfield and established their own town in 1855.
Since the museum opened at 35 Elm St., Agawam, people from across the region have donated hundreds of items — pieces offering a priceless look at the past. But there have been so many donations, volunteers couldn’t keep up with what was given or loaned to the place, so in 2019 they closed their doors and began organizing everything.
The doors are still closed. They’ve been working weekly since before the pandemic. The progress can be slow, especially when someone comes across a great find.
“You might see something, and you just have to dive into it — read the whole thing, digest it. But that slows the process down because we’re not just cataloguing, we’re also exploring very interesting information,” said Sue Scantlen, president of the Agawam Historical Association.
Scantlen and the other volunteers are paging through reams of information about businesses, government and people. There are deeds, bills of sales, census records — and a bit about a doctor who was remarkable just by being a doctor.
“There was a woman doctor in 1922 and we have a framed bill she gave a patient. We have a lot of information about her. She is very fascinating because there weren’t that many women doctors in the country in 1922, and we had one here in Agawam,” said Scantlen.
A famous U.S. Army general also called Agawam home. Gen. Creighton W. Abrams commanded military operations in the Vietnam War. In 1980, the army named its new main battle tank the M1 Abrams after the Agawam native. When the museum reopens, visitors will be able to read about him, too.
Other exhibits point to several distinctions that make Agawam special — the lowest-numbered ZIP code of any American town, its own brand of gin from pre-Prohibition times, its agricultural history.
The building that’s home to the museum is itself an artifact. Built a century ago, it was an active firehouse until the town built a new one in the late 1990s. Firefighters cooked and slept upstairs; their equipment was parked downstairs, in the garage area that now houses many antique firefighting tools.
“We have 1930s fire truck that’s in the process of being restored, and firehouse-related artifacts such as helmets and equipment,” said Scantlen.
There’s never been a fee to visit the museum. It runs on membership fees, donations and state grants. That’s how things have been here historically and will be in the future.
“History is a very special part of our community,” said Scantlen. “We want to preserve information and artifacts for the kids 20-30 years down the road who want to learn more about the history of their town.”
As they approached Memorial Day weekend — when they would traditionally host the first open house of the year — none of the Historical Society members was quite sure when the museum will reopen. It could be this fall, or even next year. They won’t rush their work.
“It’s just reorganizing our collection and double checking to make sure we have proper documentation, we know who it came from, when and what it pertains to. We have this whole documentation process,” said Scantlen. “There’s so much to sort out. We only do it a couple of hours a week because we’re all volunteers. People have other commitments. We work for a while and then go home until the next week.”
Museum staff are also taking this opportunity to improve how they store old documents.
“We are in the process of getting a new display cabinet that has a glass inlaid drawer so we can start storing very sensitive documents under glass,” she said.
For more information about the museum or becoming a member, visit www.agawamhistoricalassoc.webs.com or email AgawamHistoricalAssoc@gmail.com.