Muenster — Good news on the historical and cultural front — the Ben and Aggie Seyler Muenster Museum is expanding to make room for more exhibits and future growth.

Keeping history alive is one function of a museum, and walking through the Muenster Museum is one way to go back in time.

Artifacts, art, documents and hundreds of other pieces of history are everywhere and something, somewhere is likely to pull you back a number of years. Maybe you will recognize the cookie cutters laid out on the table from the kitchen of your childhood, or maybe the old package of the Lava bar of soap will bring back memories of playing outside as a kid and the fun and mess you got in, that was all washed away in the sink inside the back door. Items from “way before your time” might make you contemplate how on earth people got along “in the olden days,” or may bring some wonder when looking at the early printing press that somehow cranked out pages inked one by one.

The new construction project at the Muenster Museum is the fulfillment of planning and hard work by the museum board and the community to expand and make room for even more history.

The construction for the addition started about two months ago and the cost for the project is approximately $30,000, Muenster Museum Board President Celine Dittfurth said. The room will measure 24 x 30 feet.

The military collection owned by the museum will fill the east side of the new room.

“We have uniforms in boxes here,” Dittfurth said. “We just want to be able to display things better.”

How to use the additional space is still in the planning stage.

The campaign to raise money has been going on for a while because the board wanted to have the funds before construction of the new room started.

“We’ve been working for years,” Dittfurth said of raising the funds. “We’ve had bake sales and we’ve had a booth down at the Germanfest and get a lot of donations and that’s what we’re using to build the room...that’s a lot of pies and cakes. We just kind of planned it and kept it in our minds, when we had the money we would build a room.

“The community has been very generous and the city has donated some money to us, so we’ve been very fortunate,” Dittfurth continued. “We’ve had a lot of support.”

The museum was once the home of the Seyler family and was donated by them to become the Muenster Museum. The house was originally down by the Highway but was moved to its present location at 420 N. Main by the family in 1947. Following the move, the Seylers built on an additional room.

“We’re filled up now so we’re adding another one on,” Dittfurth said of the current addition.

Each room in the museum is named for one or more of the Seyler family members, but Dittfurth said the name for the new room has not yet been decided.

Each room is filled with history that, for the most part, has come from the residents of Muenster.

“People donate items to the museum,” Dittfurth noted. “Family members have donated something from their relatives when they’ve passed away. They wanted them to be remembered.”

One cabinet holds precious items brought over from Germany by some of the first settlers in the area. Dittfurth gave a brief history of how the German people, who make up the large majority of the community, came to the area and established the City of Muenster.

“They were in Kansas and up north, and they were looking for farmland, good farmland,” she said. “They read in a paper that there was land available in Texas and so the Flusche’s came down and made a deal for 22,000 acres of land and they said they would sell it within so long a period of time. They were of the generation that immigrated from Germany.”

When asked why people should visit the museum Dittfurth said, “Because we have a lot of interesting things and they will enjoy it. People that come say, ‘I did not realize you had so much in here.’”

When the addition is completed, the Muenster Museum will have an open house and the public will be invited, Dittfurth said, and she is very much looking forward to that day.

The Muenster Museum is open to the public from 1 to 4 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday and there is no admission charge.

For more information about the Muenster Museum or for a reservation call (940) 759-2227.