T-L Photo/JOSIE BURKHART The Belmont County Heritage Museum opens for the 2025 season, featuring a room dedicated to transportation.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Heritage Museum marked its 10th anniversary as it opened for the season on Thursday with freshly remodeled exhibits.

The museum is celebrating its 10th year and is ready to welcome guests through its doors this season. Themes for each room have been determined, and museum Director Cathryn Stanley is ready to give people tours of the building.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Visitors can expect a tour from Stanley with informational panels in each room to let people know some history and background of what they’re stepping into. People can make appointments if they wish to view the museum outside of those regular hours.

Instead of items being placed together according to their city or village of origin as they had been organized in the past, they are now placed together by theme.

The rooms include themes on the coal mining industry and innovation, transportation, trailblazers and agriculture and pioneers. Police chief history and government will be found on the stairs leading to the top level.

Admission to the museum is free, though there is a donation box at the front for people to contribute if they wish.

Many of the artifacts in the building remain the same; however, they are grouped together and arranged differently now in a way that made sense to Stanley.

Stanley said people can expect to see items they might have not noticed before as they were on display somewhere else, and the new displays will help people better understand the story of Belmont County.

She said she is looking forward to celebrating the museum’s 10th anniversary by opening for the year and participating in different events throughout 2025.

Stanley said she thinks the museum – established at the former sheriff’s residence adjacent to the courthouse and former jail – is a great jumping off point. She urges visitors to go to the Belmont County Tourism Office’s other museums and has brochures for the other museums on site.

“We’re just excited to celebrate the fact it’s been 10 years since it opened as a museum, and we had a really successful year last year,” she said. “I say that every year, but every year we do get more donations and we can get more people in. And we work really hard to have different exhibits and different events.”

The structure that houses the museum served as the sheriff’s residence from 1890 until 1976. After that, it became county office space until 1996 when it was vacated, according to its website. A group of preservationists rallied to save the building, and county commissioners utilized grant funding from the Ohio Department of Transportation, Economic Development funds, and local funding from the Belmont County Tourism Council to restore the structure.