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Carnegie museum opens mushroom exhibit
FAIRFIELD – The Carnegie Historical Museum in Fairfield has a new natural history exhibit available for viewing, focusing on mushrooms.
The exhibit was built by museum volunteer Art McBreen, who researched the history of mushroom clubs in town and collected many mushrooms himself to put on display. McBreen collected the mushrooms during hunts in Jefferson, Washington and Van Buren counties. He had them freeze dried at The Collective in Fairfield so that they could be preserved for the exhibit.
The display case on the third floor of the museum includes about two dozen varieties of mushrooms, as well as posters on mushrooms courtesy of the North American Mycological Association, which were printed locally. McBreen said he wanted the display to appeal to children as well as adults, so he purchased boxes of crayons to give away with a booklet of mushrooms for kids to color.
The display contains information about a mushroom-gathering club active in Fairfield in the 1920s called the Toadstool Club. Sadly, the club faded away, but McBreen found information about the club from newspaper articles of the day which go into the club’s activities, such as setting up a tent in Chautauqua Park where residents could bring their mushrooms to be identified so they’d know whether they were edible or poisonous.
McBreen is the treasurer of the Prairie States Mushroom Club, which covers eastern Iowa and often meets in the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids region. He hopes to organize more events for the group in Southeast Iowa.
McBreen’s first taste of Fairfield was as a student at Maharishi International University from 1978-79. He moved away, and then moved back to Fairfield in 2020. Ever since his return, he’s wanted to be more involved in the community, and that’s why he began volunteering at the museum. At first, he was asked to sort through the museum’s immense collection of artifacts from Parsons College.
Earlier this year, McBreen wrote an article for the Prairie States Mushroom Club’s newsletter about the history of the Toadstool Club. Carnegie museum director and curator Jake Schmidt asked McBreen if he could write something similar on the Toadstool Club for the museum’s newsletter. In June, Schmidt told McBreen that a display case was going to become available, and asked him if he wanted to create an exhibit on mushrooms.
“It had never entered my mind,” McBreen said.
McBreen said the only artifacts that told the history of mushrooms were carved wooden depictions of them, since there was no “taxidermy for mushrooms.” But today, with the advent of freeze-drying, it’s possible to preserve mushrooms for long periods of time.
“I liked the idea of bringing in another natural exhibit,” McBreen said. “We’ve got geodes, birds, stuffed animals, corals, butterflies and insects. All the exhibits of late have been cultural and anthropological, which is all well and good, but I like bringing in a natural exhibit, which is how the museum started.”
McBreen’s mushroom display will be available for viewing through December.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
