The dream of a museum for the city of Irving began over forty years ago during the U. S. Bicentennial celebration of 1975 – 1976. As part of the celebration, the Irving Bicentennial Committee created a local history museum. The volunteer-run museum opened in 1975. After the Bicentennial, visitation steadily declined and the museum closed.
However, the idea of a history museum remained a desire of some determined Irving residents. Over the years, ideas were proposed, but none gained traction. Then, in 2000, the City Council created an ad hoc committee to develop a report on the feasibility of a local heritage museum. From this project the Irving Museum Advisory Board was created with the mission of developing plans for a museum. By 2005, the project appeared well on its way with 313 W. Irving Blvd. identified as the museum’s future home, but in 2007, City Council placed the plans on hold.
For the next several years, plans for a museum were dormant. In 2013 a plan was put in place to use the first floor of the recently vacated Central Library building at 801 W. Irving Blvd. as space for a heritage museum.
In 2017, planning began on renovating the first floor of 801 W. Irving Blvd (now the Jack D. Huffman Community Building) into the Irving Archives and Museum. The 22,000 square foot facility opened in February 2020. Funding for the project was provided by hotel occupancy tax revenue as well as generous donations from the Irving Heritage Society, the Irving Heritage Festival Fund, and the Friends of the Irving Museums. The museum continues to be primarily funded from hotel occupancy tax revenues and receives additional support from the fundraising efforts of the Friends of the Irving Museums and generous residents and businesses.
Although the road to creating the Irving Archives and Museum was long, it did not mean local history lovers remained still. A small museum was created at Williams Square in Las Colinas dedicated to the Mustangs of Las Colinas sculpture. In the early 1990s, the Irving Heritage Society and the City of Irving worked together to create the Jackie Townsell Bear Creek Heritage Center, which documents African American history and one of North Texas’s earliest freedman communities. The Kennedy assassination’s ties to Irving are documented in the Ruth Paine House Museum which tells the story of how one typical household was swept up in this tragic story.
IAM now serves as the hub institution for all of Irving’s museums.
