The made over Great Cobar Museum is now officially open and it looks amazing!
A grand opening ceremony was held for the grand old building yesterday with Parliamen-tary Secretary to the Deputy Premier, Sam Farraway MLC (representing the Deputy Prem-ier Paul Toole and former Deputy Premier John Barilaro) and Cobar’s mayor, Peter Abbott, given the honour of cutting the ribbon.
The building that once housed the admin-istration offices of the Great Cobar Copper Mine has been painstakingly restored as to how it would have looked upon its completion in 1913 while the interior has been fitted out as a modern museum.
The works included weather proofing and preservation of the building, along with new exhibitions inside.
“With $693,791.00 in funding from the NSW Government, I’m so pleased to see The Great Cobar Museum open again along with the re-gion’s new visitor information centre showcas-ing the very best of Outback NSW,” Mr Farra-way said.
He said the fantastic structure will again be home to the town’s Heritage Museum which focuses on Mining, Agriculture and Aboriginal history.
In addition to the NSW Government’s fund-ing, the project received $1,425,000 from the Far North West Joint Organisation and co-contributions from Cobar Shire Council.
The opening was a huge success, allowing the community of Cobar to witness this trans-formation.
Mayor Abbott praised Council’s small tour-ism team for their tireless work in making this project and the official opening a great success.
During the opening Mr Farraway also an-nounced Phase 2 of Council’s plans to upgrade the museum have also now been approved for further funding.
Funding of $1.395million from Resources for Regions will see the construction of a new coach house and landscaping in the rear yard.
For two years, museum and Cobar Shire Council staff have worked with builders, vari-ous specialist contractors, architects, graphic designers, an exhibition designer, a curatorial consultant, a conservator, and a writing team to produce a beautifully restored building, which itself tells an important story as part of Cobar’s history.
The museum display has been refined and includes a number of objects and photos that have never previously been on display or have-n’t been displayed for a number of years.
The original and new features have been colour coded by paint, with the new verandah posts on the south side of the building painted Capsicum red while the original posts on the eastern verandah are painted Meerkat brown.
This theme is also carried throughout the interior along with a copper theme with many copper display surfaces, copper plinths, coun-tertops and copper railings.
Cobar residents are invited to visit the muse-um for free during the month of December.
