By Town Crier Staff Report

Effective immediately, the Los Altos History Museum is offering free admission to people of all age groups. This has been made possible through a grant from an anonymous donor.

The board of directors approved the free admission at its Aug. 1 meeting, but the public announcement was delayed until all museum members were notified, said Museum Director Madelyn Crawford.

Museum officials had been charging $3 for adults, with free admission for those 18 and younger. However, they noticed some visitors stopped short of going in when they saw the admission fees.

“We were noticing people who were hesitating to go in,” said Bob Grimm, president of the board of directors. “If anything is holding things back, we wanted to eliminate that.”

Supporters were also inspired by the San Jose Museum of Art, which dropped its admission fees and saw attendance increase dramatically.

The museum, which opened in March, has a permanent exhibit chronicling the history of the Los Altos area on the second floor. The first floor has a changing exhibit space, a gift shop, a kitchen and an outdoor agricultural exhibit. The basement features a conference room, offices, archives storage and research areas.

Crawford said the recent grant will keep the museum free for at least five years. She said free admission will not hurt the funding for the museum since its sources of revenue are diverse, from event fees to gift shop revenues and ongoing donations.

“We’ll get as much from the donation boxes as we got from admission,” Crawford said.