Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum

Background Statement

The Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum was organized in 2001 by a group of veterans who were concerned that veterans' stories of service and sacrifice needed to be preserved for future generations. The organization imitated a program for recording in digital medium the experiences of World War II veterans. Many of these veterans also donated artifacts associated with their time in the service. In 2002, the City of Broomfield provided one room in what was the former Broomfield library for use as a small museum. Even as a single room the museum proved to be a popular place to visit by local residents. The collection of artifacts quickly grew and soon the single room was not sufficient for displays and storage. In 2009, the City allocated the entire first floor of the building to the museum. This allowed the board of directors to display many more donated and lent artifacts. The museum now has seven exhibit rooms, a research library and a work room. The current exhibit rooms focus respectively on World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, and small exhibits on World War I and Civil War.

In 2013, the museum started the "Coffee and Conversation with a Veteran" program (C&C). Under this program, two Saturdays a month a veteran, historian or civilian with personal involvement in military conflicts provides an informal presentation about his or her experiences, which is followed by a question and answer period. Examples include a teenager growing up in Nazi occupied Netherlands, a survivor of Auschwitz, a Medal of Honor recipient, a Korean War veteran and three women Iraq & Afghanistan veterans. These have proven to be very popular and are well attended. On February 11, 2017, the 120th C&C was presented to a capacity crowd. Since the opening, the museum displays are routinely rotated and updated with new artifacts. The completion of the Afghanistan/Iraq room in 2014 was a significant enhancement to the museum's collection. The United States history and military history reference library has also seen significant growth, currently numbering over 1800 books, and a large collection of historic VHS tapes, DVDs and CDs. The museum has over 150 video interviews of local area veterans, and continue the veterans' interviews program with 10 additional interviews added this year.

A new program started in 2016 created artifact "trunks" containing educational artifacts that can be

handled by students. These trunks, along with lesson plans consistent with school guidelines are available for loan to teachers.