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Hayden — The Hayden Heritage Center is coming out of a rough winter that left its storage shed with snow damage.

Officials at the museum, which started its summer hours Thursday, plan to work with the town to get grants to repair the structure, curator Mary Pat Dunn said. She hopes to get the fixes done before next winter.

"We're trying to move forward with getting grants," Dunn said. "We're in the preliminary process."

The storage unit was built in the 1960s or '70s, Dunn said.

"We're hoping actually to get a really nice-looking structure that we can use for display of our larger items," she said. Those include a sleigh that was used in the 1920s and a wagon that was used on an area farm.

Dunn said she wasn't sure how much renovations would cost.

"We're thinking at least $40,000," she said. "I don't know, with prices skyrocketing the way they are : we're hoping the community would step forward and maybe do some in-kind donations, which would be necessary for a grant anyway."

The museum sits back on Pearl Street and will be open for summer every day but Monday. Visitors can get informal tours if they'd like, Dunn said. Children tend to gravitate toward the jail outside.

"It is really a charming museum; it just really captures the local flavor," she said.

Museum volunteer and Hayden resident Judy Green also shared her enthusiasm for the Hayden Heritage Center, which she described as the "best-kept secret in town." Some of her favorite items are the saddle with a hole from where lightning struck the rider and the Mount Harris mining exhibit.

This summer, the museum will display political buttons dating to the 1940s, Dunn said.

"It's just a really fun look at some very strange and very interesting and very bizarre political campaign buttons," she said. "That's kind of fun, especially this year."