Curious Collection | Former school houses natural history museum, hosts floating art exhibit

The Washington School at the intersection of Harrison and Davis streets has a secret world within its walls.

The 81-year-old building, once a grade school, is now home to thousands of artifacts and fossils, ages' worth of electronics as well as a Sumatran tiger.

Kirksville resident Charles Tharp, 52 and retired, owns the old brick school building and works daily on incorporating this array of items into exhibits for the Washington Museum of Natural History, Art, Science and Literature that he plans to open there.

Tharp said the all-encompassing name reflects what the museum will display.

"It's a fairly eclectic mix of things," he said. "You know, to me, anything that has intrinsic value that somebody else might be interested in seeing is the type of things we will have in here."

Something of interest for everyone should be on display when the museum is complete, and if not, visitors won't be able to resist admiring what Tharp has created inside this building.

Tharp bought the Washington School building from the Kirksville School District in 1989, just a few months after the school closed permanently, and spent a mere $1,555.55 on the 28-room schoolhouse. He later got a slightly better deal when he made a purchase of $1 for the old high school, located at the intersection of McPherson and Florence streets, which he now uses as storage for the museum.

Tharp has purchased and repaired more than 10 old buildings in his lifetime, but this is his first museum.

"I have always had an affinity for old buildings," he said. "I'd save them all if I could."

The museum is a Missouri nonprofit corporation, and Tharp is working on a tax-exempt status for donations to the museum. Until then, he said he will rely on generous donations from others or findings of his own.

The old paintings resting on children's desks lining the hallways of the first floor are among some of Tharp's findings for the museum. Nearby is a classroom full with more than 10,000 volumes of books overflowing from shelves and boxes.

The second level has much more to offer. The first sight at the top of the second floor is a mural that shows Tharp smiling and driving a car full of The Beatles. In the same hallway are bathrooms whose toilets, painted by University students, will provide an exciting bathroom experience for visitors.

In the room across the hall, a history of colorful typewriters decorates rows of shelves behind a wall of old and new computers.

The next room is one with shelves upon shelves of fossils, artifacts, bones, rocks and stones. In a room connected to this one, the body of a stuffed tiger stands on display.

"That poor tiger has the oblivious distinction of being the last legally killed Sumatran tiger," Tharp said. "It was shot in 1967 just before they went on the endangered species list."

The tiger is accompanied by displays of varying nature. Parts from the no-longer-standing Kirksville Kennedy Theater rest on a shelf and hang on the wall next to a photograph of the original building. Medical tools from the 19th and 20th century surround a human skeleton in a glass display case, while ancient artifacts and photographs of caves fill the rest of the room. The museum's crest, painted in an upper corner, looks down over a cabinet of medicines from the 19th century.

A third connected room will be the art room. Here, an enormous fresco painting, done by the University senior art class of 1997, covers an entire wall.

Piles of samples of plants and flowers, mostly from Tharp's mother's farm, fill a room down the hall. Tharp said his mother used to teach in the Washington School.

"She thinks it's really great that I have one of the schools that she used to teach in," Tharp said. "In fact, one of her classrooms is the one with the tiger."

The Washington School does not serve solely as a museum.

Tharp welcomes University art students to use empty rooms as studio space.

"I don't charge anything for any usages of the building," he said. "They leave something that other people can enjoy. Just a contribution, some way to help better the museum."

Tharp also hosts the University's annual Tom Thumb Floating Art Gallery in the Washington School. This event typically features performing artists.

Sophomore Nick Corich's artwork was featured at the last Tom Thumb art exhibit. He spoke with Tharp briefly there and noticed his passion for the building.

"[Tharp] was high energy and pretty enthusiastic about what he was doing with his space in the Washington School," Corich said.

He said he enjoyed Tom Thumb, from the bands playing in the gym to the chess matches in the hallways.

"I thought it was a pretty unique place to have an art exhibit," he said. "The building itself was a piece of art."

A retired doctor of osteopathy regularly sees Amish and Mennonite patients daily in two old principals' offices on the first floor. Patients sit and wait for the doctor on wooden church pews Tharp found in the landfill he owned and operated from 1982 to 2004.

Tharp is not quite sure when the Washington Museum of Natural History, Art, Science and Literature will be completely finished.

"It is definitely a work in progress," he said. "Hopefully within the next few years."

Until then, he said he happily offers tours to anyone who asks.