Farmington Museum Seeks Recipes, Stories to Shape New Community Exhibit

The Farmington Museum & Visitor Center wrapped up a four-day community collection event Saturday after gathering recipes, family stories, sayings and personal memories from San Juan County residents to help shape an upcoming exhibit tentatively titled "The Story of Farmington," developed in partnership with Visit Farmington.

The museum opened a public submission form for the effort, soliciting short written memories, family recipes with backstories, and photographs or personal artifacts that could inform exhibit content or be reproduced within the show. Materials gathered through the April 2-5 campaign may become part of the exhibit itself or the programming built around it.

For a city with Farmington's composition, where Indigenous, Hispanic, Anglo and other communities have long shared the same geography, the format is particularly suited to surfacing cultural practices that rarely make it into formal history displays: the meals passed down without written instructions, the family sayings that travel across generations, the photographs that never circulated beyond a kitchen wall.

Community involvement has been central to the project from the start. The museum hosted workshops and public input sessions in the months before the April collection event, giving residents multiple paths into the process before the open submission window opened.

Residents who want to contribute should contact the Farmington Museum directly to confirm whether submissions are still being accepted, what formats qualify and what permissions the museum requires before using personal materials in exhibit content. The museum's calendar may also list upcoming in-person sessions for those who prefer to contribute on-site or speak on camera rather than submit through the online form.

Broader programming, including workshops, displays and additional community events, is expected to accompany the exhibit through its development.