The Murrieta Train Project | Aimee Edgeworth
With the motto, “The Future of Southern California,” the small town of Murrieta, California, has a rich history that Aimee Edgeworth is trying to share through art, education, and community connection.
What started as a 15,000-acre sheep ranch, Murrieta became a booming train town after the Southern California Railroad came through in 1883. This busy railroad town became a calm suburbia after the last train left the station in 1935. In 1990, Murrieta received official city status after a two-year campaign and a decade of immense population growth.
Today, alongside the Murrieta Valley Historical Society, Aimee Edgeworth is on a mission to bring the rich history of Murrieta to life with her new non-profit organization, the Pearl Center for Creative Arts. Named after Aimee’s great-grandmother, who lived in the 1800s, the Pearl Center for Creative Arts, Pearl for short, is currently a mobile organization offering various programming to Murrieta community members. Pearl hosts interactive events at local market nights, the Murrieta Historical Society, and other public events. Aimee offers interactive art projects, from teaching traditional charcoal, drawing, dressing up in Victorian clothes, and decorating traditional parasols. Aimee is excited to share the victorian and pioneering history that shaped so much of Murrieta, bringing some historical themes such as medical inventions, technological advancement, and pioneer spirit to life.
What inspired you to start Pearl?
Aimee was first inspired by the stories her grandfather told her when she was young. He was a great storyteller, sharing stories of growing up in the Ozarks, like when he chopped off his toe while chopping wood barefoot at 12. Aimee grew up hearing these incredible stories, and as her grandfather got older, it was harder and harder for him to share these stories with his family. Aimee felt like the lives of past generations needed to be heard, recorded, shared, and celebrated!
As a lover of museums, creative writing, history, theater, and art, Pearl started as a passion project of Aimee's. She thought having a “creative canvas to share with the community” would be great. While Aimee was busy raising her four young children, she brainstormed the idea of turning history into interactive art for a few years until she decided to “create a museum that focuses on family history and local history through art.”
Aimee started painting photographs of her ancestors a few years ago, leading her to learn more about the time and people she was painting. Taking her own experience with her family history and how important it has been for her to learn and connect, she wants to inspire others to find the good stories in their own families, to dig and learn more. “I hope that through this project, I can inspire people to learn the stories of their families, more than the names and dates.”
After a year of growth and successful programming, Pearl is looking for their forever home in the shape of a historical train car! The Pearl physical space will eventually live in Pioneer Park, a public park in Murrieta, and will be open to the public for interactive, rotating historical art exhibits. Thus the “Murrieta Train Project” was born! Why a train? “Murrieta was built by people who lived and died by the train, and the train car will be living history that the community can relate to in real-time.”
How is the Let’s Choose Love Grant helping you realize your giveback dream?
Aimee needs to rally her community to raise funds to purchase the train car, move the car, and build the infrastructure to support Pearl. With help from Let’s Choose Love funding, Pearl will host their largest and most exciting fundraising event to date - Lace & Locomotives, a Victorian Steampunk Tea Party! The Tea Party will take place at the Murrieta Community Center on August 5th and will be a community event to raise funds to bring the Pearl center to life.
The three-hour event will include a proper tea party with historical china and three-tier treat towers complete with finger sandwiches, biscuits, and local fudge! Additionally, the event will feature music by local musicians, a fun photo booth, and a silent auction, all to benefit the Murrieta Train Project. Aimee hopes the event will be an opportunity for the community to come together, celebrate their collective history, create their own community history, and raise money for the future cultural arts center!
Aimee has already found an old dining train car at a great price that she hopes to purchase with funds raised at the Lace & Locomotives party. Once the Pearl team purchases the train car, they can begin renovations, and Aimee already has excellent ideas for gathering more long-term community support to help with this.
Ticket sales for the Lace & Locomotives Victorian Steampunk Tea Party go live on Saturday, April 1st. You can learn more about the event and purchase tickets here. Can’t make the party in real life? Consider donating to the Murrieta Train project on their website. You can follow the Pearl Center for Creative Arts as it continues to bring history to life on Instagram and Facebook.
The future home of the Pearl Center for Creative Arts!
