The Mesa Historical Museum is located in the old Lehi School buildings and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original Lehi School, built on land donated by the Rogers family in the 1880s, was a one room adobe building (similar to the replica in front of the museum). The little community had outgrown the adobe schoolhouse by the early 1910s. The current building was constructed in 1914 and the adobe schoolhouse was demolished.

Lehi continued to grow and the new schoolhouse was soon outgrown. The building was expanded in the 1920s with the addition of two new classrooms. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration made additional improvements, including the auditorium. While poorly designed, the auditorium was so well constructed that it was designated as the community bomb shelter during the Cold War. The school’s first mechanical cooling system was installed in the main building in the 1950s.

Many years of improvements were not enough to save the school and it was condemned by the school district in 1976. Slated for destruction, school officials discovered it would be more expensive to tear down the school buildings, due to the sturdy construction of the auditorium, and rebuild on the site than to simply abandon it. The City of Mesa purchased the site and resold it to the Mesa Historical Museum for a small sum.

The Mesa Historical Society was incorporated in 1966 by citizens concerned about the preservation of Mesa’s rich history. They endured difficulties in finding a place for their growing collections, finally finding a home in the old City Hall. This is now the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Disagreements about the direction of the museum in the 1980s led the Historical Society to break away and form their own museum. As the names make clear, the Arizona Museum of Natural History focuses on broader issues of the region (including archaeology and paleontology), while the Mesa Historical Museum is dedicated to the preservation of the history of Mesa.

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Due to the separation from the Arizona Museum of Natural History, the society asked for help from the community to renovate and furnish its exhibits and facilities. The citizens of Mesa generously gave of their time, money, and artifacts and the new Mesa Historical Museum opened its doors to the public in 1987. The Museum originally housed exhibits in both the main building and the auditorium, but the growing collection needs of the museum, along with state and legislative requirements forced the museum to use the auditorium for other purposes, including storage for the ever-growing collections.

The auditorium features beautiful murals, commissioned in the 1990s, depicting important people, places, and events in Mesa’s history. Improvements and changes have continued as the museum strives to tell the story of Mesa. Recently, one wing of the building has been restored to its original form in preparation for the installation of Searching for Mesa: Finding Ourselves in Our History.

In addition to exhibitions on area history, the Mesa Historical Museum offers field trips and an assortment of educational programs. To learn more, visit our Calendar or our Exhibitions page.