The Grace Museum

In the fall of nineteen thirty-seven, a group of women in Abilene convened under the banner of the Art League of the Abilene Woman's Club. They wanted to bring national and international art to West Texas, sponsor lectures, and build a permanent collection. The museum they founded began as the Abilene Fine Arts Museum.

For decades it operated in various locations around the city. Then, in the late nineteen eighties, the organization took on a new challenge: saving the Hotel Grace, an abandoned fifty-five-thousand-square-foot building in downtown Abilene. The historic hotel was renovated and became the museum's permanent home. The name changed to The Grace Museum in nineteen ninety-eight. What began as a women's civic initiative now houses art, children's exhibits, and history collections inside a rescued piece of West Texas commercial architecture.