After a month-long promotion of an iconic doll happened in downtown Jefferson, that same momentum has transitioned into a smaller scale display.

Greene County Historical Society Co-Director Dianne Piepel says on display at the Greene County Historical Museum are 120 of the nearly 500 Barbie dolls that were initially at the former Sensibly Chic building during June’s Barbie By The Bells promotion.

Piepel points out that because of how successful that program was, they decided to keep some of those dolls that were from the 1980s to early 2000s on display with the other 300 vintage Barbies that are already on permanent display at the museum.

“We were lucky to get some donations from Barbie By The Bells (with) some of their backdrops, their display cases, which made it even more of an interest to put them up.”    

Piepel says Barbie By The Bells charged admission to see that collection as a fundraiser for them and about $10,000 was brought in. According to Barbie By The Bells, over 1,900 people visited throughout June, which represented 34 states and six countries. Piepel talks about the feedback she heard during that time.

“We’ve had a lot of wonderful, positive comments, not only about the Barbie displays but the whole museum. People took time to go through and saw things they never seen before. So many wonderful, wonderful comments. People from many, many states came and said it was the nicest, most organized museum they’d ever seen. That really pumped us up and so that keeps us going.”    

Piepel thanks the efforts of the Barbie By The Bells committee with Jan Rosdail-Argerter, Muriel Lehman, and Sue Richardson and Deb McGinn, as well as Home State Bank and Jefferson Telecom as sponsors. The museum is open Wednesdays from 1-4pm and 9am-noon on Saturdays with free will donations accepted.