The El Paso Museum of History is a museum located in downtown El Paso, Texas which presents information about past 400 years of history in the United States/Mexico border region. The museum has over 16,000 feet of exhibition space.[1] Galleries in the museum feature traveling exhibitions as well as several permanent exhibitions.[1] The museum also presents special programs and has a permanent digital touchscreen wall and a traveling wall. The museum is run by the City of El Paso.[2][3]
History
The museum started out as a Cavalry Museum in 1974.[4] At that time, it mainly featured information about "the mounted history of the West".[5] In 1980, the name was changed to the El Paso Museum of History.[4] The museum was supervised by the El Paso Museum of Art director until the El Paso Museum of History hired its own director in December 1990.[6]
The museum's building was considered undersized and in a poor location, so in 2000, the museum was included as part of a bond issue to build a new museum.[4]
The new building, downtown, opened on June 16, 2007.[4] After one year in its new location the museum saw more than 30,000 visitors.[4] The museum is credited with helping "rejuvenate downtown El Paso."[3]
Wall of Giants
The El Paso Museum of History is part of an annual project, called the Wall of Giants, to honor a person, entity, location or event that has had an ongoing impact on the city.[7] The honoree is chosen by a community group called the Circle of Giants.[7]
The large touchscreen digital wall, known as "Digie" opened on February 14, 2015.[11] It is the second digital wall in the world and the first in the United States.[11] The wall is made of "five massive touch screens" and presents an interactive, three-dimensional view of the history of El Paso, starting in the late 1600s.[12] Each touch-screen is at 95 inch LED and the digital content is networked to other digital walls in other cities.[13] The wall itself is forty feet long by six feet high.[14] There is also a smaller companion wall which is mobile and able to visit schools, malls and community centers.[14] Digie allows visitors to interact with the wall by searching for information or just by browsing the images shown.
Digie stands for Digital Information Gateway in El Paso.[11] Ideas for names for the wall were submitted by community members.[15] El Paso residents, visitors or former residents are invited to share their own pictures and videos relating to El Paso with the museum and be shown on Digie.[16][17] All pictures are screened first by the curator of Digie, Everett Thomas.[14] The wall is not only a place to view pictures and videos, but it also stores and archives these materials.[14]
The digital wall cost around three million dollars to build and was funded by a 2012 bond issue.[18] The idea for the wall dates back to 2011, when Julia Bussinger, the director of the El Paso Museum of History met with the Copenhagen museum director at a conference.[14] The two directors discussed having the next digital wall in El Paso.[14] Copenhagen was the location of the first digital wall of its kind in the world.[11]
