Луисвиллдегі Фрейзер тарих мұражайы

History museum in Louisville, Kentucky

The Frazier History Museum, previously known as the Frazier Historical Arms Museum and the Frazier International History Museum, is a Kentucky history museum located on Museum Row in the West Main District of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Founded in 2004 as a museum of historical arms and armor, the Frazier has since expanded its focus. An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum preserves and presents Kentucky history through artifacts, exhibitions, educational programs, Bourbon tastings, and guided tours. Subjects of permanent exhibitions include Kentucky history, Kentucky pop culture, Kentucky bourbon whiskey, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the Stewart Historic Miniatures Collection.

Owsley Brown Frazier was a wealthy businessman and philanthropist in Louisville. When a tornado struck the city during the 1974 Super Outbreak, it destroyed Frazier's home, and a rare Kentucky long rifle that he owned – a family heirloom made for his great great grandfather in Bardstown in the 1820s and gifted to him by his grandfather in 1952 – disappeared. Frazier would never find the rifle, but his search for it would spark a passion for collecting antique weapons. Inspired by the turnout, Frazier decided to found a museum where he could showcase his private collection on permanent public display. In 2002, a website was launched for the Owsley Brown Frazier Historical Arms Museum, an institution whose stated mission was "to acclaim the artistry, craftsmanship, and technological innovation of weapons and their makers." In February 2003, Mr. Frazier signed a formal agreement entering into a partnership with the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, also known as the United Kingdom's National Museum of Arms and Armour, an ancient institution of the Tower of London that was originally founded to manufacture armor for the Kings of England. The agreement outlined plans for the Frazier Museum to borrow and display arms and armament from the Royal Armouries. Mr. Frazier provided most of the funds for the $32 million project and backed the loans that were taken out to finance the development.

The Frazier Historical Arms Museum opened to the public on May 22, 2004.

On May 17, 2006, the museum changed its name to the Frazier International History Museum, a nod to the multinational origins of its collection. That year, the museum received another influx of foreign arms and military artifacts from the Royal Armouries. Acquired as a long term loan from the National Cemetery Administration, the historic monument honors the soldiers of the U. S. 32nd Indiana Volunteer Regiment who died at the Battle of Rowlett's Station. In October 2010, the Frazier introduced a theatrical performance series based on the works of Gothic horror fiction writer Edgar Allan Poe. The series became An Evening With Poe, an annually recurring, week long Halloween tradition. The performances were adapted and staged by Tony Dingman, Kelly Moore, and Eric Frantz, three of the Frazier's Teaching Artists, and featured live music performed by The Tamerlane Trio. In May 2012, a bronze sculpture of a Japanese warrior riding horseback into battle by Douwe Blumberg titled Way of Horse and Bow was gifted to the Frazier by actor William Shatner and his wife Elizabeth. In August, the museum's founder and chief benefactor Owsley Brown Frazier died. The last remaining objects on loan from the Royal Armouries were returned in January 2015. Lawrence, a Louisville native, partnered with the Frazier to help promote the exhibition. In March 2018, the Frazier sold the first 250 bottles of Final Reserve: James Thompson and Brother Bourbon, a whiskey that had been aged 45 years in the barrel, making it the most mature bourbon ever bottled. With the opening of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Welcome Center on August 30, 2018, the Frazier became the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a project launched in 1999 by the Kentucky Distillers' Association to promote bourbon tourism in the state. In November 2019, the tenth and final season of An Evening With Poe wrapped. During the course of the program's ten year run, the Frazier's staff adapted a total of 33 of Poe's works, including poems, short stories, plays, and a novel. According to Dr. Hal Poe, a former president of The Poe Foundation and living relative of Edgar Allan Poe, the Frazier has staged and performed more of Poe's works than anyone in the world.

As river based commerce and trade fueled Louisville's early growth following its settlement in 1779, West Main Street became the first street established by residents. Because of its close proximity to Main Street and the Ohio River, the intersection of Ninth and Main Streets came to serve important commercial purposes. A tobacco warehouse built at the northeast corner of the intersection began operating in the 1850s. The firm of Meguiar, Harris & Co. managed the so called 9th Street Tobacco Warehouse until the 1890s. Labeled "the whirling tiger of the air" by The Courier Journal, the tornado killed an estimated 76 to 120 people and destroyed 766 buildings, one of which was the 9th Street Tobacco Warehouse.

[[File:FHM 2005. jpg|thumb|A 2005 photo shows the new cupola, installed November 7, 2003. It was to be made of brick, stone, and iron with a tower at the corner. The self proclaimed "largest producer of pants in America," the firm employed some 350 workers at the factory – 25 men, the rest women and girls. On April 7, 1905, the day its contract with the union was set to expire, the firm announced three imminent changes: first, it would henceforth run the factory as an open shop; second, the 10% pay raise the workers had won upon unionizing in 1903 would be repealed; and third, the length of the work week would be extended from 54 to 60 hours. In December, a judge ruled for the defendant in what has been called "a decision of importance, both to organized labor and to capitalists." Charring is still visible on some of the timber joists on the southeast side of the building.

Objects in the museum's permanent collection are kept in storage in the basement when not on display. Offices and work spaces for security personnel and employees of the collections and exhibits departments are located in the basement.

A staff of costumed actors known as teaching artists writes and stages live interpretations at the Frazier. The performances cover a breadth of historical material dating from the Middle Ages to the 1930s. Subjects of performances have included legends of Norse mythology and English folklore, the trial of Joan of Arc, the execution of Anne Boleyn, the Golden Age of Piracy, the reign of Catherine the Great, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Burning of Washington, the Blackburn race riots, the sinking of CSS Alabama, the founding of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and the kidnapping of an Oklahoma oil tycoon by Kathryn and Machine Gun Kelly. Stories relayed as firsthand accounts have included a sailmaker's captivity aboard , a surveyor's incursions into Shawnee hunting grounds, a sharpshooter's missions in the Peninsular War, a riverboat gambler's card games aboard the Kansas Pacific Railway, and a Louisville seamstress's achievements in bridal wear.