The Aurora History Museum features American Indian artifacts from Aurora, personal possessions of the community’s earliest settlers, and items related to local industry and business. New and special exhibits will debut periodically, so please check back often to see another aspect of our community’s history. The Rix Jennings murals, which chronologically tell the story of Aurora’s history, are on exhibit in the main corridor outside the town offices at the Municipal Center.

The exhibits of the Aurora History Museum, located outside the Historian's Office and presented in collaboration with the Aurora Historical Society, are open during Municipal Center hours, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays.

 

LARGE-PRINT EXHIBIT LABELS:

To assist our guests in exploring the exhibits of the History Museum and inside the Historian’s Office, the exhibit labels are available for digital download and in a book on the table outside the Historian's Office door. Click below to download the labels.

 

FEATURED EXHIBITION:

February 10 - May 30, 2025
The Early Days of Emery Park

Emery Park opened near the hamlet of South Wales 100 years ago this summer.

With the purchase in August 1925 of 175 acres from Helen B. Emery, Erie County established Emery Park as part of its newly formed county parks system. The land in the southeast corner of the Town of Aurora had been in the Emery family since Josiah Emery purchased his farmland nearly a century earlier.

The original photographs featured in this exhibit, taken by photographer Warren L. Inskip shortly after Emery Park opened to the public, come from a binder titled “Photographic Views of County Parks, 1927.” Preserved in the archives of the Aurora Town Historian’s Office, this collection of photographs also contains images of Erie County’s other early parks, including Chestnut Ridge, Ellicott Creek  and Como Lake. The binder was donated to the Aurora Town Historian’s Office by Richard S. Persons, Sr., who served as chairman of the Erie County Parks Commission when Emery Park opened in 1925. He later served as Aurora Town Historian.  

These images offer a unique glimpse into what was likely a Sunday afternoon in the park in the 1920s. 

This and other historical exhibits may be viewed during regular Municipal Center hours, Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.