The Walter Elwood Museum in Amsterdam, New York, preserves the history of the city and surrounding region through collections focused on everyday objects and local material culture. Founded in 1939 by local history teacher Walter Elwood, it grew from artifacts he began gathering in the 1930s. Its exhibits cover local industry, textile mills, politics, the Victorian era, and natural history, with collections including Mohawk-made objects, political buttons, doll clothes, glass teaching slides, fossils, and shells. After moving among several Amsterdam sites and closing following Hurricane Irene damage in 2011, it reopened in 2013 in the former Sanford & Sons Carpet Mills building.