Note: The article below is a condensed version of the story written by Miller County Autogram-Sentinel reporter, Ginny Duffield. (Kelly Warman-Stallings)    
Efforts​​ to maintain a Miller County historical society petered out in the 1930s, but in late winter of 1979 a group of county residents and people with ties to the county but no longer living here founded the Miller County Historical Society.

A group of 31 charter members met March 25, 1979, in Tuscumbia to found the society. On April 8, 1979, some 97 people gathered at the County Court​​house Annex to complete the bylaws, constitution and the not-for-profit tax status for a planned future museum. The society was officially born. Joe Glass of Iberia, who now lives in the St. Louis area, was the founding president.

"We were flying by the seat of our pant​​s... We had no place to meet," Mrs. Hake said. The group continued to use the annex for meetings.

Th​​e Miller County Commission was supportive of the effort and eventually offered a five-year lease on the old jail building. In June, 1980 the museum became a reality. The present museum was acquired because the society wanted a permanent home for the display of artifacts being housed in the old jail. After eight years in that leased property, the society got an offer too good to refuse. The Wright family of Tuscumbia, owners of Anchor Milling Company, wanted to sell its remaining building in Tuscumbia and offered it to the Miller County Historical Society.   

Display​​s are set up by theme on the two floors of the museum. The lower - basement - level features tools, farm equipment and display panels depicting the building of Bagnell Dam and impoundment of Lake of the Ozarks. Displays upstairs include those depicting a one-room schoolhouse, with furnishings from the old Brown and White schools in the county, a corner devoted to old toys, an area set up to resemble the counter at a general store, an area devoted to weaving, complete with a restored loom, a music room, a display depicting military service, examples of handwork done primarily by women, including quilts, knitting, crocheting, and fabrication of coverlets, etc...

Some of the  300 members take responsibility for display areas, keeping them clean and sometimes rotating what is displayed. "Everybody has their own exhibit to take care of," Mrs. Hake said.​​