It was anything but business as usual last Saturday (March 27, 2021) at the Morongo Basin Historical Society, or MBHS, Museum and Research Center in Landers. The task at hand was to relocate the irreplaceable contents of the “Moharve” Mercantile Museum. The huge private collection of 1930s and ‘40s general store and butcher shop treasures had to travel from Pioneertown to its new home on the Historical Society campus in Landers. The scope and scale of the job would have been overwhelming were it not for volunteers from the 3rd Battalion 11th Marines. Reporter Mike Lipsitz picks up the story from here…
For weeks MBHS President Claudia Spotts has been consumed with logistical details of the major acquisition—how to catalog, pack, secure, and move the lifetime collection of Harvey and Monika Legrone intact. Everything was factored into the equation except for the able aid of 17 men and women from the Single Marine Program at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. Working alongside MBHS members, the Marine volunteers applied the essential combination of brute strength and light touch to transport everything from a 350-pound antique butcher block table to delicate glass lanterns and sensitive produce scales. And following the move, the volunteers pitched in with landscaping at the museum campus. MBHS member and retired Marine Greg Herring of Pioneertown said of the effort, “These Marines made it look easy, in an hour.”
