Herzstein Memorial Museum - Clayton, NM
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 36° 27.095 W 103° 10.961
13S E 662859 N 4035572
The Herzstein Memorial Museum has been certified by the Historic Trails Division of the National Parks Service as an official Santa Fe Trail Interpretive Center. We will be happy to affix our unique stamp on your Santa Fe Trail Passport.
Waymark Code: WM73Q3
Location: New Mexico, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2009
Views: 4
County of Museum: Union County
The mission of the Union County Historical Society, a non-profit organization, is to preserve the cultural heritage of Union County. It shall maintain the Herzstein Memorial Museum, an institution devoted to the acquisition, care, interpretation and exhibit of artifacts and documents associated with the history of Union County and Northeastern New Mexico regions.
Museum History:
According to the cornerstone, the building now housing the Herzstein Memorial Museum was built in 1919 as a Methodist-Episcopal Church. It incorporates the cornerstone of an earlier church on this site. It is also the location of Clayton’s first public school. That was an adobe structure which faced south and was situated toward the rear of the present building.
At one time, there were two Methodist Congregations in Clayton. The one housed in this building and known as the North Methodist and another congregation called the South Methodist Church. In the 1930’s, the two churches united, retaining the South Methodist preacher but meeting in the North Methodist building.
In the 1960’s, the congregation constructed a more modern, ground-level facility on North Fifth Avenue and left this building unused for several years. When the Union County Historical Society reorganized in 1972, a generous gift from the Chilcote family allowed the historical society to purchase the property and allowed the Methodist Church to discharge the mortgage on their new building.
Albert Herzstein, born in Trinidad in 1907, was raised in Clayton and remembered his boyhood hometown very fondly. His father, Morris, took his family to Denver in 1920. Over the years, Mr. Herzstein had subscribed to the local newspaper. After reading the hopes and dreams of the local group, he came to the rescue with a generous grant to restore the old church and give it entirely new mechanical systems, including an elevator.
As a church, the historic building served a number of community purposes. Until 1939 and the advent of a WPA-built public library, the community library was on the stage in the lower level of the museum. The large room was a venue for large community gatherings and banquets served from the church kitchen which remains essentially intact. The large room also served as a community basketball court and roller-skating rink. A portion of the area now devoted to the museum’s medical exhibit and the neighboring storage area was once a one-lane bowling alley. For a number of years, the Clayton Rotary Club met in the “alley.”
The Herzstein Memorial Museum was dedicated on October 1, 1988, in recognition of funds provided by the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, “in memory of our parents, Lola Walker and Spencer Avis and Lena and Morris Herzstein” and in memory of Albert’s sister, Sadie Herzstein Smith.