02 Nov There’s a New Fountain in Fountain Hills!
Construction of new fountain at CK Valenti Designs
River of Time Museum opened 12 years ago with a mission to incorporate and celebrate the rich history of the Lower Verde River Valley and the importance of water in the Sonoran desert. As the the museum grew it soon was apparent that the current space of 5,000 square feet was not able to hold the immense collection of history representing the community of Fountain Hills and Lower Verde River Valley. “We are dedicated to reconnect with the town of Fountain Hills and bring a new level of interaction and flair to visitors and the community,” according to Museum Director, Luke Bate, “and grow the museum to be an integral part of the long term plan of growth and sustainability for the community.” The mission of the museum has now evolved to represent social sciences of history, archaeology, anthropology, geology, art and geography of Fountain Hills and Lower Verde River Valley. An additional initiative of the museum is to be more attractive to youth by providing educational and interactive resources.
Robert P. McCulloch built the world’s tallest Fountain to be the center piece of the community and to attract people to visit and move to the oasis town he founded in 1970, Fountain Hills, Arizona. The community was founded December 15, 1970 the day the fountain was turned on at the 64 acre, Fountain Park. Incorporation of the city was on December 5, 1989. To date the fountain is the 4th largest fountain in the world.
This year, Bate introduced to Chris Valenti, owner of CK Valenti Designs, the idea of the new fountain for the community. The fountain being an interactive model on a much smaller scale that would allow visitors at the museum to understand how the water actually flows within the fountain at Fountain Park. The new interactive fountain model will meet one of Arizona’s Department of Education’s Initiatives by fulfilling each discipline of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics). All competency areas play a part in the fountain model to be featured at the River of Time Museum and be on display at the Grand Reopening on December 5, 2015.
“CK Valenti and Chris were absolutely great to work with, we feel fortunate to have a group that could envision, build the model’s structure, and also engineer the interactivity and technology to create a real life working model,” commented Bate, “It will be an interesting visual at the center of the museum. We believe it will be an integral part of our facility and its growth over the next 5 years when we celebrate 50 year anniversary of Fountain Hills.”