Ribbon cutting celebration August 5 for the Neville Museum’s renovated exhibit areas.

By Kasha Huntowski, Executive Director, Neville Public Museum Foundation

After sixteen months of hard work, the Neville Public Museum is proud to announce the renovated core gallery on the second floor is now open to the public.

Patrons were able to see the new Generations Gallery featuring public favorites, such as Stompy the Mastodon and the Ice Harvesting video, in their new environment as well as brand new displays featuring artifacts and art work from the permanent collection only seen in collections storage until this day.

Speakers included Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach, Neville Public Museum Executive Director Beth Lemke, Neville Public Museum Foundation Executive Director Kasha Huntowski, Neville Public Museum Curator Lisa Kain, and Brown County Supervisor John VanDyck, who chairs the Education & Recreation Committee.

Part of our permanent gallery renovation sponsored an interactive TV studio on the second floor, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund within the Community Foundation, and we could not do this without their generous gift!

How Did We Get Here?

The Neville Public Museum began over a century ago, in 1915, with a small exhibit organized by the former Green Bay Art Club in the downtown Kellogg Library. The exhibit was very popular and quickly outgrew its basement room.

By 1927, thanks to the generous support of the Neville family, a new Museum was built — the Neville Public Museum. The exhibits and rapidly growing collections quickly outgrew this building, too.

In a community-wide show of support, Brown County voters approved a tax levy in 1980 to fund the construction of a new museum building. The current Neville Public Museum building opened in 1983.

Thirty-seven years later the public and private partnership between Brown County and the Neville Public Museum Foundation provided the funding for renovation.

The 8,000-square-foot gallery on the museum’s second floor share Northeastern Wisconsin’s natural, cultural, and human history in a more integrated, relevant, and memorable way. The gallery upgrades make the space more imaginative, experiential, and participatory and include high-impact graphics, technology, and increased accessibility for navigation through the gallery.

The Generations Gallery features 12 thematic sections and is designed with flexibility in mind to accommodate future changes and additions, ensuring continuous updates and sustainability.

For more information on the Neville Public Museum’s new Generations Gallery.

Who were the Nelsons? Learn more about the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund and find out more about this couple here.