No longer the Teton Dam Flood Museum

REXBURG – Remember the iconic Teton Flood film highlighting those harrowing days during and after the Teton Dam failure resulting in the flooding of communities from Sugar City to Blackfoot?

Thousands of school students, residents and tourists have watched that 10-minute film at the Teton Flood Museum in the basement of the historic Rexburg Tabernacle Civic Center. In field trips and individually they have looked at the photos, the artifacts and curiosities of the June 5, 1976, tragedy that defined the community nearly 40 years ago.

They may have spotted a photo in a 1980 newspaper clipping showing the dark shell of the tabernacle basement being leveled out to prepare for pouring of a cement floor, the very floor where they are standing to read the clipping.

All of those iconic Teton Flood reminders still exist in the museum, and they aren’t going anywhere.

But the museum created in 1983 to make sense of the disaster and its aftermath will no longer be called the Teton Flood Museum.

The Rexburg City Council voted earlier this month to rename it as the Museum of Rexburg with Teton Flood Exhibit and Children’s Discovery Room.

The change came after internal discussions among city officials and staff and at the urging of Jackie Rawlins, who the city hired in November as its cultural arts director and museum curator, a combined full-time position.

While the museum was created soon after the disaster and contains flood movies, displays and artifacts, since 1983 many more historical artifacts and documents have been added to the museum collection, Rawlins told the council.

The flood era is an important part of the community’s history, but there is much more to showcase, she said. The council listened and voted to approve the name change, with no opposition.

Rawlins said many people have asked her about the change and wondered about it, but once the situation was explained they have approved. Even the Rexburg Historical Society, which has offices in the same building, expressed no objections.

The new name better describes what’s actually displayed in the museum, providing better clarity of expectations for visitors, she said.

For Rawlins, whose experience is in theater and who has no formal training as a museum curator, the work has just begun. Since the holidays the museum has been closed while she and an intern have sorted through the jam-packed storage area to try to begin to organize and catalog the collection.

“I’m good at organization,” she said.

Right now dust covers many exhibits. The aisles are filled with things pulled from storage – old military uniforms and office machines like typewriters and adding machines. The plan is to discover what’s in the collection and then make decisions on what and how to display it.

In the short term Rawlins hopes to reorganize the collection to tell a better story about the history of Rexburg. The plans also call for expanding and refining the flood collection. The budget for the museum is small, but with very supportive city officials, Rawlins is looking into grants to help fund any long-term improvements. She also hopes to develop a cadre of volunteers to help staff the place.

There is no deadline for reopening the museum, but Rawlins is shooting for as soon as possible this spring.

“It’s overwhelming but we’re taking it one step at a time,” she said.