Updated with comments from the museum's assistant director, additional details of the crime, and lots more photos.
"Gah," the caption above a picture of a smashed window reads. "We had some unwanted visitors last night."
The picture shows an etched and frosted, quarter-inch thick door window pane smashed by a chunk of concrete. The pane was 130 years old.
According to a press release, the museum's weekend manager Lindsey Davis lives on the property and heard the alarms go off around 10 p.m. Davis discovered the outer doors jimmied open, the glass pane smashed, and the front doors wide open. She also found an empty cash box on the floor.
Though $98 was missing from the box, Assistant Director Shelley S. Niemeier says that's not the real cost here -- it's the destruction of the front door window pane. A repairman has already been in to assess the cost of replacing it.
"We'll have an estimate by the end of the business day today," says Niemeier. "We don't know how much, but it's going to be a lot. The window dates from the 1880s, it's a very ornate, etched window."
But history buffs being history buffs, Niemeier naturally found something to learn from the experience.
