County of Grey-Owen Sound Museum - In the 1950s, various groups and individuals worked towards the establishment of a museum and art gallery facility for Owen Sound, Ontario (e.g. the Lyceum Club, the Grey County Historical Society, and the Women's Institute). At first they used a building behind Buchan Manor, but eventually had a brick building that was a former church building, located where the present (2009) Tom Thomson Art Gallery is situated (beside the former Carnegie Library, now known as the Owen Sound Public Library). In 1967, the museum and art gallery functions and collections separated when Canadian Centennial grants were used to build a separate museum building behind the Grey County Administration building.<br /><br />There is a June, 1967 opening program for this museum, and a W. Prettie photograph from the early days of its operation, at the Grey County Archives. There are also some staff and event images that were taken over the years.<br /><br />John J. Landen, his wife Dorothy Landen, various local Women's Institute volunteers, and Viola C. Bothwell worked there in the late 1960s. Muriel Johnson (nee Snider) also was a receptionist there. When John Landen retired in 1973, his eldest son, A. W. Landen, became the Director there, and continued to build the site with more period buildings, demonstrations and staffing. The museum closed in the later part of 2003 to allow staff to get the collections packed up for their move to a larger facility, then called the Grey Roots Visitor & Heritage Centre (opened in May, 2004). It later was renamed as the Grey Roots Museum and Archives.