The roof of the former Otho Elementary is in horrible shape and has put the Webster County Museum’s future in question, reports the Fort Dodge Messenger. The museum also has mold.
One of the museum’s volunteers was killed in a traffic accident and the curator is in a wheelchair.
The article says the museum opened in the school in August 2001, which contradicts a Messenger article from 2015 — also about the building’s leaky roof — when the curator said the museum opened in August 2003. Unfortunately, I think I’d need someone living in Webster County to tell me exactly when Otho Elementary was closed, because some things from the early 2000s are surprisingly hard to find.