By Tracy Gupton

The addition of Michael Bailey to the Columbia Historical Museum management team is being heralded by museum board president Naomi Smith as an important move in bringing improvements to West Columbia’s downtown museum.  The hiring of Bailey as the museum’s new curator was unanimously approved by the museum’s directors at a recent board meeting.

“We were very lucky to find someone of Michael’s caliber” to take the helm at West Columbia’s museum, Board President Smith said.  She and museum board treasurer Betty Blackmon have been doing their best in recent months to fill the void left by the resignation last year of former museum manager Margaret Wilke due to health issues to handle the daily management of the Columbia Historical Museum. Other volunteers like Dora Culberson, Debra Bess, Jo Frances Chastain, Pat Weeks and Jana Ogilvie have been valuable assets to West Columbia’s museum.

Bailey, who retired March 1, 2023, as curator of the Brazoria County Museum in Angleton, will begin serving in his new role as curator of West Columbia’s museum on Thursday, July 6^_th.  He said he is looking forward to this new post-retirement challenge and encourages everyone to come by the museum at 247 East Brazos Avenue in the old Galloway Building to meet him and other members of the museum staff.

“Visit the Columbia Historical Museum, take home a memory,” Bailey said.

_{Photo by Ken Conkle/The Facts}

New Columbia Historical Museum Curator Michael Bailey, left, portraying Judge R.B. Loggins at 2022’s Meet Your Ancestors at Columbia Cemetery. Judge Loggins’ grandson Dr. Burch Loggins’ wife Donna Ruth Loggins and other descendants of the longtime WC lawyer and judge are also pictured listening to Bailey last year.

“These museums are more than homes for artifacts, they are born from labors of love and give a community a sense of self, adding to its economic well-being and a place to share,” he said.

Bailey is well-known around Brazoria County.  In addition to having worked at the county museum in Angleton as curator since 2001, he has been a valuable asset to the West Columbia museum over the past couple decades by not only being a regular source of historical knowledge but also a talented reenactor at the annual “Meet Your Ancestors” fall programs at the historic Columbia Cemetery. His portrayals of local historical figures like former Texas Governor James Stephen “Jim” Hogg and former county attorney Reuben Burch Loggins of West Columbia have entertained and informed the many visitors to the local cemetery’s “Meet Your Ancestors” program and to functions at the Varner-Hogg State Park near West Columbia.

Although Southeast Texas has been his home in the 21^st Century, Michael Bailey’s life began in Virginia where he was born into a family of tobacco farmers. He said he always loved history and growing up in rural Virginia contributed heavily to his interest in broadening his knowledge of historical events. He joined the Army right out of high school.

Bailey advanced to the rank of Specialist 4 during his military career in the U.S. Army in the 1980s. He was a nuclear weapons specialist who was honored with an Army Achievement Medal in 1983.

_{Photo by Tracy Gupton}

New museum curator Michael Bailey, left, will begin work Thursday, July 6th, at the Columbia Historical Museum in West Columbia. He posed with, pictured from left to right, museum board members Jo Frances Chastain, Naomi Smith and Betty Blackmon on International Museum Day May 18, 2023, at the West Columbia museum.

Michael J. Bailey earned his bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and History from Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana, after having attended classes at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, from 1981 to 1983. He earned his graduate certificate from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., between 2005 and 2007.

Other honors bestowed on Michael Bailey during his career as a museum curator include The Texas Association of Museums professional development certificate from Texas A&M University for collections, management, exhibits and education/outreach in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

An Angleton resident, Michael Bailey remains active in historical reenactments through his membership in the Sons of the American Revolution and Sons of the Republic of Texas, as well as the Brazoria Historical Militia. He is a past president of the Cradle of Texas Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and is an honorary member of the Stephen F. Austin Chapter #6 of the Sons of the Republic of Texas.

Prior to his embarking on a more than 20-year career with the Brazoria County Museum, Bailey said he served as the mayor of Saint Vincent, Minnesota, between 1998 and 2001.  His previous museum resume is highlighted by stops at the Eugene Debs House Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, the Pembina State Museum in Pembina, North Dakota, and the Ernie Pyle State Historical Site in Dana, Indiana. Bailey was a tour guide in 1995-96 at the Ernie Pyle State Historical Site, site supervisor at the Pembina State Museum in North Dakota and curator at the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Indiana.

The Columbia Historical Museum was first opened in the former First Capitol Bank building in West Columbia in 1990.  Museum Board President Naomi Smith said the front room of the museum has artifacts arranged in chronological order, starting with the Karankawa Indians artifacts and going counterclockwise around the room through the early Anglo settlers of the Columbia area to the time this area was the site of the first capitol of the Republic of Texas in 1836-37, moving on to artifacts denoting Columbia’s importance in the later 1800s era in agriculture and businesses along the banks of the Brazos River, into the time frame of the early 1900s when the oil industry was king in Brazoria County.

“Most folks do not realize the importance of cultural institutions of this size,” Bailey said in reference to historical museums in small towns like West Columbia. “The bulk of the nation’s collections are cared for in museums, much like the Columbia Historical Museum.”

_{Photo by Tracy Gupton}

Michael Bailey pictured at the Brazoria County Historical Museum in Angleton giving a 2022 instructional class on proper preservation techniques that should be used for items of historical value.