Mine Museum
Mining operations having been closed down in 1914, the open pit became an attraction for visitors to the city and by the 1960s a gathering together of relics of Kimberley's early days, including old buildings and sundry memoriabilia, began to be organised into a formal museum and tourist attraction. In 1965 De Beers appointed Basil Humphreys as museum consultant, with the museum being substantially up-graded as an open-air representation of early Kimberley, with streetscapes and dioramas, and exhibits of mining technology and transport. There was an official opening during the Kimberley's centenary celebrations in 1971. One of the attractions was the Diamond Hall. The Mine Museum went through subsequent further upgrades. Between 2002 and 2005 De Beers invested R50 million in developing the Big Hole into a world-class tourism facility, based on the idea of creating "a lasting legacy for the people of Kimberley." The new facility, the Big Hole Kimberley, elaborating a theme of 'Diamonds and Destiny', was expected to double visitor numbers to the Big Hole.
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Famous quotes containing the word museum:
“Life is in the mouth; death is in the mouth.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 60, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)