10,000 SF Museum Slated to Open in Historic Susquehanna River Town in 2028
(September 12, 2025 — Columbia, PA) The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has completed a purchase agreement for 345 Locust Street in Columbia. The property, the longtime home of the borough’s Wells Fargo Bank branch, is adjacent to 331 Locust—a former Woolworth’s and Masons Hall—which is also under contract.
The museum is now targeting a late 2028 opening date and will encompass more than 10,000 square feet of public space, including a rooftop greenspace as part of an indoor/outdoor event venue.
Preliminary design work is being done by the architectural firm of Perkins & Will, which is currently working on the Motown Museum in Detroit and the Bezos Learning Center at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Members of the Perkins & Will design team were also involved with the National Museum of African American History & Culture in the nation’s capital.
The Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania will celebrate the “Conspiracy of Good” that took place for over a half-century prior to the Civil War across a state that had the nation’s longest border with the slave-holding South. The Columbia location was selected for the pivotal role it played in aiding freedom seekers, as well as its central location between two other major projects—the Thaddeus Stevens/Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History (Lancaster) and the Mifflin Farmstead (Wrightsville).
Together, the three sites promise to make the Susquehanna Valley the nation’s premier destination for Underground Railroad tourism.
Building Bridges
During its pre-construction phase, the Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is focused on establishing working relationships with the 240 museums, historical organizations, and educational programs in the state that are currently interpreting different parts of the same remarkable story. The goal is to create a nexus of Underground Railroad tourism information and publicize the extraordinary work that is being done in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. On the museum website (UGRRMuseumPA.org), the “UGRR EVENTS” tab features a monthly calendar of events and programs being offered by these organizations.
This effort is the centerpiece of the museum’s Building Bridges initiative, which is being officially launched on Saturday, September 13th, during the Christiana Historical Society’s popular Heritage Days event held at the Christiana Resistance Museum. The 1:00 pm presentation will outline plans for the Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and feature remarks by State Representative Dan Williams, who co-sponsored the resolution that made September 2025 in Pennsylvania officially International Underground Railroad Month.
To commemorate this achievement, the Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has created a downloadable and printable 18” x 24” poster that chronicles numerous September events in Pennsylvania’s “Conspiracy of Good”—including the Christiana Resistance. The poster is available on the web site at no charge.
The Saturday event in Christiana will also include a walking tour of the railroad bridge that once carried freedom-seekers from Columbia to Philadelphia, hidden in special freight cars owned by William Whipper and Stephen Smith, the African American entrepreneurs who were pivotal to the success of the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania.
For more information on the Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
visit UGRRMuseumPA.org.
An exterior rendering by Perkins and Will of the Underground Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania includes an indoor/outdoor rooftop greenspace located atop the extension that will replace the current bank property.
The former Woolworth’s and Masons Hall at 331 Locust is show on the far left.