The Museum will be closed the week of December 9–14 in order to re-organize, clean and update exhibits. 

 Disappointed would-be-Museum-visitors can get a behind the scenes peek at Museum staff and volunteers busy at work cleaning the Rex Theatre curtain at the Louisville Recreation Center in one of the rooms adjacent to the pool. Feel free to stop by and watch the work!

The Rex Theatre curtain is an oil on canvas curtain, painted in Louisville around 1927 and hung on stage at the Rex Theatre on Main Street. It is almost 100 years old! Do you recognize this building?

Today, the Rex Theatre building is home to the Waterloo Restaurant at 817 Main Street!

The Rex Theatre in 1919 on the left and the Waterloo Restaurant today on the right.

In 2016, The Rex Theatre curtain was named one of the most significant artifacts in Colorado by History Colorado!

This curtain provides a wonderful snapshot of Louisville’s commercial history from the late 1920s. The family names on the advertisements show a strong concentration of Italians in town. Colorado’s northern coal field brought many Italian miners to the area and towns like Louisville provided unique communities for their families to grow and prosper into business owners. Louisville eventually became known for its popular Italian restaurants, including the Blue Parrot, which is advertised here as “Mike Calacci Lunch & Short Orders.”

We appreciate your understanding during our brief closure and look forward to welcoming visitors to the newly cleaned and updated Museum on Dec.17 at 10 a.m. when we reopen!