Founder of Museum of Appalachia wonders what will happen to it when he is gone

John Rice Irwin created the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tenn., largely with his own money and decades of effort. Now, recently made a widower at 77, he wonders what will happen to it when he is gone, Mike Gibson writes in a 3,800-word feature for Metro Pulse, a weekly in nearby Knoxville. (Photo by Shawn Poynter)

"He has just laid to eternal rest Elizabeth Irwin, his wife of 53 years, who had been suffering with congestive heart failure after an enervating bout with breast cancer," Gibson reports. "And the fate of his museum, a staggeringly well-appointed cultural preserve fashioned from hard work, dreams, and the detritus of a dying way of life, is also in doubt. Rice recently told his board of directors that he can no longer continue to shore up funding with substantial regular contributions from his own pocket, as he has done for so many years."

The museum "perennially runs five figures into the red," but Irwin told Gibson that if its finances worsened, it would not close, but stop acquiring items (it has bought 250,000), sell some animals and cut back on groundskeeping and activities. But he added, "There would be no more press releases about new things, and that’s what keeps people coming back. Lots of big museums have gone this route, and then they’ve lost 30 to 40 percent of their attendance." The museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, attracts about 100,000 visitors a year.

The 65-acre museum has 35 structures, a free-roaming meangerie and thousands of exhibits. "It is perhaps fruitless to even attempt a right summation of MOA’s many thousands of artifacts within the space of a single paragraph, from once-common household objects such as 19th century craftsman’s tools to lost or secreted treasures, some of which may stretch even the 21st century imagination," Gibson writes. Irwin, a former teacher and school superintendent, knows not just the artifacts, but how they were used, thanks in part to knowledge passed on by his grandfather, who was born in 1860.

“The ingenuity of the southern Appalachian people is such that they could do almost anything they set their minds to,” Irwin said, inspiring Gibson to write: "The same could be said of Irwin and this museum, his life’s work, a fabulous achievement that lies closer to his heart than perhaps anyone could understand." Roderick Moore, director of the Blue Ridge Institute in Virginia, told Gibson, “John saw that the objects of everyday man were important. He has a museum of artifacts from people who were below the level of historical scrutiny, during a time when every other museum wanted the biggest and the best.”

Irwin is a legend, but also an example of Jesus' observation about a prophet lacking honor in his home country. "Among some locals, Rice is regarded as a heartless profiteer who has made his fortune by exploiting the Southern poor," Gibson reports. "That perception is largely based on misinformation, and it’s a perception rankles Irwin to no end. [He] points out that he has never received a salary for his work with the museum, and that he recently wrote off a quarter million dollars of his own money that the museum has 'borrowed' from him over the years. What’s more, Irwin received the prestigious MacArthur [Foundation] 'genius' award in 1989, the full $350,000 of which he donated to the museum." (Read more)