Two years after receiving a building for it, organizers are now ready to open a museum in Brookside.

The Brookside History Museum will be located in a local house that is more than 110 years old.

Joseph Graham donated the Burrell-Country House to the town of Brookside. The historic shotgun-style building was delivered to the Brookside municipal complex in June 2009.

Since then, Staci Simon Glover and other volunteers have been preparing the building to house local artifacts.

“We’re ready for donations,” said Glover, who is a member of the Five Mile Creek History Committee and a history professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of History and Anthropology.

The first public walk-through of the museum will be Sept. 10, the day of the Brookside Greenway Festival, from noon until 1 p.m.

Right now the museum consists mainly of three open rooms with a few items such as a bed frame, an antique refrigerator and a wood-burning stove that is original to the house.

The back room will remain set up as a kitchen and the middle room will be set up as a bedroom, complete with an antique metal bed, a tall stand-up radio and a refurbished fireplace.

The museum’s front room is where exhibit space will be located. It is empty now, but Glover is ready to receive items such as pictures (or copies of pictures), clothing, store registers, books, scrapbooks or other artifacts.

A major focus of the museum is the area’s deep mining history.

“We want anything to do with mining,” Glover said, or anything to do with the history of Brookside and the nearby towns of Blossburg, Republic, Watson, Cardiff and other towns.

The museum already has some items such as a miner’s lamp, clacker (money used at the mines) and Native American artifacts found in nearby Five Mile Creek.

Glover said organizers will take submissions as gifts to the museum or on loan.

Her recently published book, Coal Mining in Jefferson County, will also be for sale at the museum. Proceeds from sales on Sept. 10 will go to the museum.

Next spring, the facility will expand its exhibits to the outdoors by planting vegetable and herb gardens. The Boys and Girls Club of Brookside will tend to the gardens and will keep the produce, according to Glover.

She also hopes to eventually rent out the museum for wedding receptions or other events.

The Burrell-Country House was built before 1900 by Sam Thornley and was home to several families before former Cardiff Mayor Joseph “Jobo” Country bought the house. His grandson Joseph Graham donated the house to Brookside in 2009.

Museum donations may be dropped off at Brookside Town Hall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information or to make an appointment to donate items, call Glover at 631-1017 or 936-4480.