Jason Burns is bringing color and life to the Morgantown History Museum.
written by jordan pugh
PHotographed by carla witt ford
Jason Burns can’t believe his luck.
He was working at the university and looking for a change last year, but he wasn’t sure what it would be. “The thing I kept thinking about was, when I’d go to museums, I always wanted to see what’s inside the basement and the attic,” Burns says. “I kept telling my best friend and my brother, ‘I’d love to find a job in a museum somewhere.’” When his brother sent him the listing for the manager position at the Morgantown History Museum, it was the perfect job at the perfect time. “I fell into a pot of gold here.”
A West Virginia native raised in rural Pendleton County, Burns developed a deep appreciation for regional history from a young age—West Virginia folklore and ghost stories are his favorites. After 17 years at WVU, where he coordinated Mountaineer Week, offered campus ghost tours, and more, he took over at the museum in November 2023.
As the museum’s first paid, full-time manager, Burns hopes to elevate the space and its offerings. His current goals are to bring in more color and inclusivity. He’s painting walls, adding vibrant blues to brighten and refresh the space. And he’s integrating a greater variety of perspectives. The museum’s Black History Month exhibit, for example, aims to shed light on some less-often-told parts of Monongalia County’s history. On display through May, the exhibit features the first African American mayor of any West Virginia municipality and photos from segregated schools in nearby Osage—as well as receipts documenting the sale of two enslaved people in Virginia, artifacts that Burns and museum staff discovered in the archives. He describes the receipts as “objects with power.”
In addition to permanent and rotating themed history exhibits, the museum has a research gallery of historical texts and accompanying artifacts. One of Burns’ favorite items is a Morgantown City Council meeting minutes book from the 1860s detailing city life in the Civil War era. Visitors are encouraged to use the research gallery for their studies and amusement.
Museum management is a more active job than you might think. Burns claims he has walked more already in the museum than in his entire life, exclaiming “Thank God for Dr. Scholl’s!” while emphasizing that it is a good kind of exhaustion. Artifact overflow is an ongoing challenge, he says—his office, a garage, and a storage room on-site are at max capacity, in addition to two off-site storage units. At the same time, that rich resource allows him to rotate artifacts and curate fresh exhibits, keeping the museum dynamic.
Exhibits on the Metropolitan Theatre’s 100th anniversary and Don Knotts’ 100th birthday are 2024 events to look forward to. The museum also recently acquired parts and photographs of the first airplane flown in West Virginia—it happened right here in Morgantown—and Burns hints at a coming exhibit on Morgantown’s first airborne apparatus.
Entrance to the Morgantown History Museum is always free, and the museum offers guided tours. Walk-ins are welcome, but if you schedule ahead, staff can arrange a demonstration of the printing press. And, in spite of artifact overflow, Burns encourages folks to contribute artifacts—“history happens every day, so stuff that happened yesterday, last week, that’s history right now”—as well as oral histories and monetary donations.
175 Kirk Street, @morgantownhistory on FB
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