The National Music Museum in Vermillion, S.D. is celebrating 50 years with a new exhibit

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) -A nationally recognized music museum is located right here in Siouxland

KTIV’s Ervin Dohmen stopped by the museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, as they opened a new exhibit earlier this year to celebrate a big milestone.

The new exhibit is called “As Good as Gold: The First 50 Years,” the exhibit opened up back in January and is a celebration of the half century marks since the National Music Museum first opened their doors.

“It’s really a treasure this is the largest collection of musical instruments in the country and really in the world if you look at collections that have a broad array of type’s of the things,” said Arian Sheets, from the National Music Museum.

The new exhibit features a vast catalog of musical instruments that have a rich history.

“The earliest part of the collection originally came as part of the instruments belonging to Arne B. Larson, who was a music director who got a position here at USD and brought his collection of 2,500 instruments down from Brookings S.D,” said Sheets.

In 1973, Andre Larson, Arne’s son was the one who proposed having the Museum on the University’s Campus.

One of the newer additions to the exhibit took nearly 3 decades to find.

“There are a lot of things in this that I really like, but there was this one instrument that we had acquired. It’s an Italian Polygonal Virginal, which is a type of harpsichord,” said Sheets.

The exhibit is broken up into five separate themes that highlight the collection periods.

Admission is free for the museum. “As Good as Gold: The First 50 Years” will be open Wed-Fri 10 a.m. to 4p.m. and Saturday’s noon to 4p.m.

The exhibit will be open through 2023.