Minnesota Fishing Museum And HOF Slowed Down Due To Road Construction

The Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame in Little Falls is a must-see venue for the avid fisherman. However, nearby road construction has slowed down business quite a bit and now the historic site is looking for donations.

From the outside, it may not look like much, but on the inside, the Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame is quite a sight to see.

Opening in 1998 and adding the hall of fame in 2013, the Little Falls gem has everything from mounted fish to historical artifacts, and even an actual fishing aquarium. Unfortunately, recent construction on Highway 27 has slowed down business drastically, and for the Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame, this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“A majority of our business comes from the summer tourists; normally we would have 40 people coming through the door, we’ve had days we’ve had absolutely no one come in,” said Brenda Perlowski, Executive Director of the Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame.

Being able to plan ahead for road construction also wasn’t an option.

“We were told the road was going to be open until August on this section, they ended up closing it down June 14th, the Friday before Father’s Day Weekend,” said Perlowski.

With regular business way down due to the construction, the historic site has had to look for other ways to make money this summer.

“We need about $35,000, that’s kind of what we usually capture during the summer tourism months and without people coming in, without them buying stuff in the gift shop, we’re way down; we’ve had some coming, obviously we have a third of it, but we still need the public’s support because the money isn’t out there,” said Perlowski.

So how can people help the Minnesota Fishing Museum Hall of Fame?

“We have a couple of things set up, you can always donate online, we have two different websites, the Minnesota Fishing Museum website or the Fishing Hall of Fame Minnesota website, there’s a PayPal button you can access from there,” said Perlowski.

The Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame have stories and memories all around it that show what living in Minnesota is all about.

“Minnesota, we are the state of fishing, the history of Minnesota and fishing would be lost without us, there’s not another museum in the state that is like this; we pay honor to the people that have donated and everything in the museum has been donated to us, we haven’t purchased anything,” said Perlowki.

Despite the road construction the Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame still hold their regular business hours and are open all year long.

If you want to make a donation, you can visit https://www.mnfishingmuseum.com/ and https://www.fishinghalloffamemn.com/.