Train enthusiasts, railroad buffs, historians and families are invited to an evening of fun and learning Tuesday as the Meridian Railroad Museum hosts an open house for the public. The event, which is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m., is an opportunity for residents to learn more about what the museum has to offer, enjoy model train sets, and immerse themselves in history.

 

Anne McKee, executive director of the museum, said Meridian has been heavily influenced by the railroads throughout the city’s 165 years, and many of the city’s longstanding families, businesses and institutions are tied to the railroad in some way. Weidmann’s Restaurant, which is the oldest restaurant in the state, started as a small diner next to the train station, she said.

 

“They had four stools and a bar,” she said. “And they would send their wagon from the little restaurant over to the trains and pick people up to eat. That’s how they started.”

 

A student of history herself, McKee said the museum has several model railroad displays of Meridian that she uses to teach visitors, school children and tour groups about the Queen City’s rich past. Incidentally, Meridian’s title of the “Queen City” also points back to the railroad and a race between two rail lines to New Orleans, she said. While the Queen line won the race, Meridian, which served as a stop along the way, ended up with the name, while New Orleans took on the title of the Crescent City after the runner-up Crescent line.

 

“The rails really, well they started Meridian,” she said.

 

Started in the 1990s, the Meridian Railroad Museum has had a tumultuous past, with multiple moves in and out of its building next to Singing Brakeman Park and several openings and closings, McKee said. While the museum has long had the support of the city’s railroad enthusiasts and the community, the fluctuations made it hard to build up a steady base of programs and visitors.

 

After taking over as executive director in March 2023, McKee said her first goal was to get the museum on a solid foundation and running smoothly, and that goal has been met. Now, with a good base to stand on, the nonprofit can look at expanding its offerings, adding programs and working to grow.

 

“We’re moving on, and we have a lot of events planned for this year,” she said. “We’re building in children. We’re bringing in civic clubs, which I’ve already been doing anyway, but I’m really working on that.”

 

The museum is also set to welcome a summer intern later this year thanks to a grant from the Riley Foundation, McKee said, and one of the intern’s first tasks will be to tackle the uncharted depths of the museum’s attic space. Used for storage, the attic is full of miscellaneous artifacts, she said, and no one is entirely sure what all is up there.

 

“One of those times that we were closed, a lot of our artifacts were brought back and just sort of thrown in right up here, which we call that our attic,” she said. “We don’t even know what we have there, and so the intern will help us take them down where our experts can go through and see. We may have a treasure up there that’s worth a bunch of money or something that our tourists would really enjoy.”

 

McKee said she is proud to work for the museum and support its work to share and preserve Meridian’s railroad history, and Tuesday’s open house is a celebration both of that effort and the bright future to come. All are invited to come take part in a festivities, she said, and learn more about Meridian Railroad Museum.

 

“We’re excited, really excited. Our board’s worked hard so we can tell these stories and talk about what all we can do,” she said.