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EDEN — Passersby peek in the windows and wonder, “When will the Eden Historical Museum open?”

A former Leaksville resident, 72-year-old Yvonne Leffew Bateman , recently stopped by to look at photos displayed in the museum’s windows. She wonders what’s going to be inside.

Wonder no more. The museum, staffed by all volunteers, will be open Saturdays starting RiverFest weekend. Admission will be free on Sept. 19 for the festival, but organizers are still deciding whether to charge in the future.

“I think it will be real interesting to see what they have inside,” said Bateman, who often visits from her home in nearby Ridgeway, Va. “I think it’s good for people to know where things around here came from and how we got where we are now.”

The museum will chronicle the formation of Eden from when dinosaurs roamed the land up until 1967, when the former towns of Draper, Leaksville and Spray consolidated into Eden.

“I think a lot of people take their history for granted. This is a way to show it and be proud of it,” said Curator Julie Ganis .

“A lot of families have lived here for generations,” she said. “And this is their story.”

The museum was created in 2007 as a project of the Eden Historical Society. But it has opened only periodically for special displays, such as Jesse James and World War II. All the while, volunteers have collected artifacts and raised money for permanent displays. In February , a $24,000 grant from Home Savings Bank allowed the museum to open its doors to the public with permanent exhibits.

But the exhibits had to be created.

The earlier displays were homemade, using computers and copiers.

The permanent displays are professionally made, although they represent more than 1,500 hours of research and editing by the volunteer staff since the beginning of this year, said Museum Director Melissa Whitten .

The museum, a former restaurant and shop donated by the Harrington family, sits on Washington Street in the Olde Leaksville District. Volunteers have redone the floor, painted the walls and built 10 “bays” to hold permanent exhibits.

The first five bays will be ready in time for the grand opening during RiverFest, Whitten said. They cover the Triassic period through 1900.

The tiny museum makes use of digital displays, which allow visitors to scroll through information that otherwise wouldn’t fit in the limited space.

Bays not yet completed will cover the periods 1900 through 1967 . One of those bays will sport a round-screen Zenith TV set, reportedly the first in the Eden area. Roscoe Hankins bought it for his mother in December 1949 , but it took another six months before she could use it at her Spray home. The area didn’t get TV reception until then.

Whitten doesn’t know when the final five permanent displays will be ready. They still need to be researched and designed.

The years after consolidation, and special topics such as baseball leagues and the many inventions to come out of Eden, will be depicted in temporary displays in the museum’s center.

Thousands of donated photos and negatives, separated and filed by volunteers, sit in plastic tubs. They eventually will be part of a genealogy room that residents can use to trace their family histories, Whitten said.

Residents have been very supportive of the museum, she said. Her living room is filled with donated items that eventually will make their way into displays.

“There’s just so much history to be told around here,” said Jean Harrington , president of the Eden Historical Museum advisory board and the person who contributed the museum building.

“We have to tell our story,” she said. “Why we’re here ... all the wonderful people and great events that have happened. And how we fit into the whole picture of North Carolina’s history.”

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com