The Virtual Museum

The Virtual Museum

of the Sutton Museum

Home of the Sutton Historical Society

The Sutton Historic House located at 309 N. Way Avenue in Sutton

Rear door of the Historic House

This Virtual Museum is our attempt to show off our museum by giving you a glimpse of it from the comfort and ease of your armchair, or from wherever you surf.

The Historic House was built in 1908 as the retirement home of John and Emma Gray who had lived next door while John and his father operated a lumber yard on this site.

The house is described on its posting as part of the Sutton Houses Project: Historic House

The Historic House is one of three buildings comprising the Sutton Museum. It provides a look at a 1908 vintage home with furnishings consistent with that period.

Furnishings of the house, for the most part, also have a Sutton story as does most of the museum artifacts. The prize possession is the original dining room set from the house which was donated by a great, granddaughter of the Grays in Odessa, Texas.

The second museum building next door at 311 N. Way Ave. is the original home of John and Emma Gray built in the 1880's. It is described at Original Gray Home. The house passed through several owners since the Gray's with several modifications and modernizations which have obscured most historical interest. The house serves as the venue for much of the historical society artifacts.

Ackerman and Ulmer families lived in this house before Dean and Dorothy Schinzel bought it. Mrs. Schinzel built her law office into one-half of the garage. That two-room office now houses the Sutton Bread Box. 

This seven-room home hosts many of the artifacts of the Sutton Museum'.

The old kitchen of this house has several small antiques, posters of Sutton ex-pats and a section devoted to the story of Saronville. 

Another room houses the Veterans' Room with several military uniforms donated by the families of Sutton vets, mostly from World War II but including Phillip Schwab's Civil War era uniform. 

There is an unusual item in the house that looks suspiciously like a piano, but isn't. There are no piano guts to it. The guts are an organ - an organ in a piano box. A search for information about the company reveals that they built these piano-looking organs for 11 years. It belonged to the Ely family and was donated to the museum several years ago.

The Sutton Rural School Museum was the school house at District #55, the Wolfe School that was two miles north of Fairfield. The school operated through the 1962-1963 school years, much later than most of the area rural schools lasted. The board of directors of the school donated it to the Clay County Fairgrounds Board where it sat for several years before being declared excess to their purposes. The Sutton Historical Society thanks that board for the building and the City of Sutton for the section of the City Park that became its home.

The Wolfe School came to us complete with the piano, a pot-belly stove, bookcases, a teachers desk and a students' desks in a variety of styles.