Don Gray Barn
Built in 1942, the Don Gray Barn holds a special place in the Museum's history as the very first building to arrive on the grounds.
When the barn was moved to the Museum, it was exactly what you would expect from a working farm building—it still contained straw, manure, and even a few lingering critters that volunteers had to clean out before restoration could begin!
To prepare it for its new role, volunteers poured a concrete floor with in-floor heating and added electricity and washrooms. During the Museum's first decade, the barn served as much more than an exhibit space. It housed the Museum's earliest displays, offices, and meeting room, while the loft above became storage for the growing collection of artifacts—a role it still serves today.
As additional buildings, including the Tea House and Founders' Building, were added to the Museum, displays expanded and the barn gradually evolved. Office space remained here until 2009, when the interior was reorganized into individual exhibit rooms.
Following the completion of Legacy Street in 2014, many exhibits moved into their new homes, allowing the Don Gray Barn to become the permanent home of the Museum's Women's Exhibit.
Today, visitors can explore the remarkable stories of pioneering women from the 1880s through the 1950s. Beginning with Indigenous women and continuing through immigration, settlement, the World Wars, the Great Depression, and everyday prairie life, the exhibit celebrates the countless women whose strength, resilience, and determination helped shape our communities.
Highlights
🧺 Women's Exhibit
🌾 Original wooden flail and grain shovel
🧳 Travelling West display
🪖 First World War display
📷 Great Depression photographs
🧦 Sock knitting machine
🔍 Stereoscopic viewer
Zeke and Mabel Visit the Don Gray Barn
New here? Meet Zeke and Mabel, your unofficial museum guides.
The first building Zeke insisted we visit was the Don Gray Barn.
“That one,” he said proudly, “is where the museum really got its start.”
The barn was built in 1942, and when it first arrived at the museum it came with a few… extras.
“Straw,” Zeke said.
“Manure,” he added.
“And a couple of critters who hadn’t quite realized they were moving out.”
“Museum accessioning was apparently a little more informal in those days,” I told him.
It took a fair bit of cleaning before things were ready for visitors.
A concrete floor was poured, complete with in-floor heating, and electricity and bathrooms were added. In the early days, this barn was everything — display hall, office, meeting space, and storage all in one building.
“For the first ten years,” Zeke said, “if something was happening at the museum, it was happening right here.”
The loft upstairs held small artifacts then, and it still does today — though visitors are politely asked to keep their feet on the ground, as the loft is dark, creaky, and exactly the sort of place where Zeke swears a grumpy taxidermy squirrel might be haunting the shadows.
As more buildings were added — like the Tea House and the Founders’ Building — the museum gained space for bigger displays. Eventually the barn itself was divided into exhibit rooms.
These days the main floor holds the Women’s Exhibit, which celebrates the lives of pioneering women from the 1880s through the 1950s.
It begins with the stories of Indigenous women, moves through the immigration of European settlers, and continues through the great challenges of the early twentieth century — war, hardship, and the determination that helped build this region.
Zeke pointed out a few of his favorite items.
“There’s the wooden flail and grain shovel,” he said.
“And over there is the First World War display.”
Then he paused in front of the sock knitters.
“Mabel,” he said quietly, “those things probably kept half the prairies warm.”
And in a barn that once held straw and horses, the stories of the people who built this country now live on.
Which seems like a pretty good trade.
In a lot of ways, the Don Gray Barn is where the museum learned how to be a museum — not fancy, not finished, but full of determination, elbow grease, and people willing to make space for history.