Collections

Museum Seeking Your Story

We invite people to contact us with items of historical interest to the Midway area. Your photographs, documents, artifacts and stories are valuable to future generations. If you would like to speak with a Museum representative about donating items or contributing your oral history, please contact us through this website, email or Facebook.

Midway Museum Collections

In 2019, Midway Museum began accepting personal donations from the community. These collections, together with the existing Museum collections of artifacts and literature, further the mission to preserve and share the historical legacy of Midway.

The Mildred Martin Buster Estate Collection

Starting with Mildred’s great-grandfather, Jesse Martin, an early inhabitant of Midway, the collection includes photographs, maps, letters, childhood playthings, articles, and even Revolutionary War era buckles from Mildred’s New York family. Mildred’s life was one of travel, family and service to the community.

The Sue Wallace Art Collection

Sue Wallace, a lifetime Midway resident, was a gifted artist. Her works, including the Midway Christian Church (DOC) and the Midway Depot, are some of the finest mid -1900’s examples of her media. Her talent was even more impressive because she was unable to paint with her hands and was restricted to a wheelchair for much of her life, the results of a debilitating disease.

Midway African-American Oral History Project

In the 1990’s, interviews with eight Midway African-American men and women were conducted by a professor from Midway College. These interviews, recorded on audio cassettes, have been transcribed. The Museum continues to work with this project to share both audio and written versions of these important Midway stories. In addition to these interviews, the Museum has approximately thirty other tapes to transcribe and an ongoing project to interview more people in the next two years.

Midway Early Structures History & Photo Collection

Historians have been collecting pictures of Midway’s homes and businesses for years. The Museum, through the Living History committee of Midway Renaissance, Inc., has installed historical information and photographs on many downtown buildings. A walking tour of downtown highlights many buildings in the “Midway District” of the National Register of Historic Places.