Sun Prairie's Historical Museum Has Fall Hours and a December 30 End Date

The Sun Prairie Historical Museum at 115 E. Main St. has been open to drop-in visitors again since September 8. For most of 2026 you needed an appointment to get through the door. The city's announcement gives these hours an end date of December 30, 2026, and says any word on 2027 "will be communicated at a later date."

That end date matters. The reopening is paid for with money from this year's budget that went unspent once the staff left. The proposed 2027 budget, released October 6, cuts both of the museum's vacant staff positions. That leaves the next eleven weeks as the only museum schedule anyone has committed to.

Leftover 2026 money is paying for these hours

Sun Prairie's approved 2026 operating budget set aside $240,900 for museum staffing and operations. According to the Sun Prairie Star, that money went unused after the museum's two full-time employees, Katie Scanlan and Sunshine Anderson, resigned in January during the city's budget-cutting talks. Anderson later told the Star that she and Scanlan had known since November 2025 that they would be leaving.

In February the museum moved to appointment-only entry. It left the main exhibits in place "until further notice," kept its online research databases and image reproduction running, and paused some tours, presentations and research help because nobody was on staff to do them. The Historical Library and Museum Board had agreed to wait for the results of April's operating referendum before deciding anything. That referendum failed.

At its April 15 meeting, the board voted unanimously to ask the city for a part-time, limited-term employee to run the museum for the rest of 2026. Anderson spoke in favor during public comment. Here is how the Sun Prairie Star quoted her:

"For the museum to function productively, and at industry standards in any way, shape or form, it needs people. At bare minimum there should be a volunteer coordinator, ideally with some archival experience. That could be even a part-time position. It just needs somebody to ground it."

Several volunteers came to that meeting too, to support keeping the museum running in the short term.

The person the city hired is Craig Jacobsen of Sauk City, who started as the museum's operations coordinator at the end of August. The Sun Prairie Star's reopening story says he built and managed the Wisconsin Historical Society's Event Rental Program until he retired this May. In an August 31 museum Facebook post quoted by the Star, Jacobsen called the role "an exciting new chapter" and said he was "honored and motivated to help share the treasures and stories of the museum with the Sun Prairie community." The board's request covered the rest of 2026 and nothing beyond it, and the fall hours end one day before the year does.

The 2027 draft cuts both museum jobs

Mayor Steve Stocker presented his proposed 2027 budget on October 6. The Sun Prairie Star's budget coverage ties the year's limits to two things: it's the first year the city is running up against state property tax levy limits, and the operating referendum failed earlier this year. In the draft, Culture & Recreation spending falls by $509,877, the biggest cut of any department category listed.

The draft also eliminates four vacant positions for $360,620 in combined savings. Two of them are the Museum Director and the Museum Program & Design Manager. The other two are the Sustainability & Resilience Manager and the Business Service Manager. Back in April, the museum board stressed that the temporary coordinator position itself could cease to exist in 2027. No final decision has been made. As of today, the proposal is still in review, and the Star lists this schedule:

1. Tuesday, October 13: budget work session
2. Tuesday, October 20: budget work session
3. Tuesday, October 27: budget work session
4. Tuesday, November 10: public hearing, preliminarily scheduled, with adoption possible that evening

In February, the Sun Prairie Historical Society turned down a request to serve again as the museum's fundraising and friends group, saying it didn't have enough volunteers of its own. The Star also reported that former staff and the city raised concerns about collection handling and safety if volunteers ran the museum without supervision. That rules out an all-volunteer museum as an easy fallback.

What's inside the 1924 library building

The building has its own history. According to Clio, the red-brick structure went up in 1924 as the town's first dedicated library, on a site where a Bird family house once stood. The museum moved in in 1969. Since the main exhibits stayed in place after February, what you see this fall is what was on display when the staff left. Highlights from the museum's published descriptions:

• The O'Keeffe Room. Georgia O'Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie. Clio describes a permanent O'Keeffe exhibit, and Visit Sun Prairie calls it the O'Keeffe Room.
• The O'Keeffe family collection. Photographs, papers and artifacts covering the family's life in Sun Prairie from 1848 into the early 1900s. This and the next two items come from the museum's research collections summary, last revised in 2022.
• Sun Prairie Canning Company material. Records spanning 1900 to 2002.
• Local industry and farms. Products and photographs from the Sun Prairie Porcelain Company, Renk Farms materials and old business advertisements.

The collections summary is a list of research holdings, not a guide to what's in the galleries. Not every item is on display, so ask at the front desk if something there catches your interest.

Matching a visit to the downtown calendar

The museum is open 16 hours a week: Tuesday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday 2 to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Several downtown events this fall land on museum days, and their hours overlap with the museum's:

Fall Fun is this Saturday and gives the simplest plan: farmers market in the morning, museum before 2 p.m. On Halloween weekend, the farmers market's last outdoor Saturday runs 7 a.m. to noon, and the museum opens at 10. The Fire & Lights holiday kickoff on November 28 is free and takes place downtown by the Historical Library & Museum. That evening, the building is the backdrop for the city's holiday season opener, three and a half hours after its doors close for the day.

The O'Keeffe story continues outside on Main Street

Public access to the O'Keeffe Room is announced only through December 30, while the outdoor O'Keeffe sites on Main Street stay open to anyone walking by. Visit Sun Prairie places an O'Keeffe historical marker in the 300 block of E. Main St., next to the Sun Prairie Police Department, a short walk east of the museum. Madison Magazine describes nine murals on downtown's Washington Mills building as a tribute inspired by O'Keeffe, and reports that the mural wall is meant to stay permanently.

That gives you a short walking loop: the murals, the marker, then the museum during open hours to see the family photographs and papers behind them. For coffee before or after, Jinx Coffee is at 107 W. Main St. As the Cap Times reported, owners Cole Hoppe and Savannah Spannagel started Jinx as a trailer and opened the storefront on November 22, 2025. The same article mentions Crumb en Croute pastries on the counter.

The city has not yet announced museum hours for after December 30. Budget work sessions on the proposed 2027 budget start tomorrow, and the public hearing is preliminarily set for November 10.

At Madison Lifestyle, we keep up with downtown Sun Prairie the way you do, one Saturday market and museum visit at a time. If you want to talk about how a place like 115 E. Main St. fits into everyday life here, we'd be glad to hear from you. Call or text. Let's talk neighborhoods.