 The museum's first curator was local artist John E. Berninger, who lived with his wife on the museum's second floor.In 1959, a gift of fifty-three Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures from Samuel H. Kress (a native of nearby Cherryville, Pennsylvania) brought the museum to a new level.The Kress gift stimulated community visionaries and museum friends to purchase and refurbish a building, formerly the First Presbyterian Church (originally built 1902), suitable to house the new collection.