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Museum Galleries

Permanent Galleries

Bay County ... Trails Through Time
For a moment, visualize a tree-lined path to an Anishinabe settlement or the riverbank camp of a voyager.  Gaze for a moment at a white pine or venture into a lumberjack's camp ... these are some of the images that will come to life when you visit this permanent exhibit housed on the first floor.  This 3,700 square-foot gallery features exhibits relating the distinctive heritage of Bay County from pre-contact days through the present.
       
The Robert & Anne Hachtel Theatre
Now showing five documentaries on local historical topics ready to start whenever you are!
  • Legends & Logs & Launches
  • Cutter Rescues
  • Margin of Victory
  • Sawdust & Shantyboys
  • The Legacy of Captain Benjamin Boutell          
KANTZLER MARITIME GALLERY
     
Bay City ... Seaport to the World
  
This gallery showcases our maritime heritage through interactive and informational exhibits featuring ... the men who built the largest wooden ships on the Great Lakes ... Bay City's world famous tug captain ... life on board ship in the WWII "Donald Duck Navy" ... shipwrecks that line the floor of the Great Lakes ... a young boy who created a new system of navigation on the Saginaw River ... and more.


Changing Galleries

THE CAPTAIN BENJAMIN BOUTELL FEATURES GALLERY
                             and     
BRIGADIER GENERAL RICHARD D. DEMARA GALLERY
    
Pewabic:  Treasure and Tragedy!
June 27, 2011 through mid-June, 2013

We are excited to partner with The Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center and NOAA to bring "Pewabic: Treasure and Tragedy!" This traveling exhibit shares the ill-fated voyage of the passenger steamer Pewabic that sank in Thunder Bay at Alpena, Michigan on August 9, 1865. The efforts to salvage the ship's valuable cargo are legendary and spanned several decades. Many men lost their lives in search of its elusive treasure.

Make plans to visit and see why this Civil War era ship was so important to Bay County's history!

THE LEGACY GALLERY

Closed for Renovation