The story was originally published in The Sylva Herald on April 3, 2019.
Harold Sims, the man behind the Cat Museum and the Catman2 shelter. Photo by Allyson Wainright.
Have you ever loved something so much that you dedicate a museum to it? That’s exactly what Harold Sims did, spreading his love of cats to Jackson County and beyond.
The American Museum of the Housecat is a collection of all things relating to cats. There are art glass cats, antique cat toys, cat stuff animals, cat clocks, cat artwork, a mummified cat and so much more.
Check out some of the cat-related items featured in the Museum down below.
Sims plans to move to a bigger location just down the road from the old antique mall.
The new museum will feature a room of kittens for visitors to play with and once the kittens are 10 to 12 weeks old, visitors can adopt the kittens if they want to.
Also, there will be a room where visitors can purchase cat related things. There will be a fake carousel with rounding boards that will have information on activities and places to see in Jackson County.
Sims has a lot of cat-related artwork and other cat knick-knacks at his house and the shed next to his house that he plans to bring to the new museum.
The museum is open normal hours from April to December and during the three months they’re not open, visitors can make an appointment to see the museum.
Normal visiting hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Sunday, the hours are 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The last tour starts at 4:30 p.m.
Sims started collecting cat related items over 25 years ago with the hopes of someday opening his own museum. Sims searched the internet to see if anyone had ever done a cat museum before, and a couple of places popped up in Europe.
There was only one cat museum in the United States and it’s in Ohio. At this point, Sims seriously started to consider opening a cat museum and purchased property at the Old Antique Mall in the former Savannah Elementary School building in 2017.
Since opening, the museum has seen over 12,000 visitors. In the last week, they’ve had over 100 visitors come to enjoy all things cats, Sims said.
Sims is constantly searching for new things to bring to the museum.
“I search all the time,” Sims said, “I search the internet, antique malls, yards sales.”
While Sims is living out his dream of owning a museum, the purpose of the museum is to provide funds for the Catman2 shelter.
Since 1996, Sims operates the Catman2, a cat’s only, no kill shelter located in Cullowhee, NC. The shelter deals with about 150 cats a year, finding homes for most of the cats. All cats are vaccinated and spayed or neuter before they leave the shelter. The adoption fee is 60 dollars at the shelter.
Sims describes Catman2 as the cat shelter with a heart, emphasizing that they rather ensure the quality of the home that the cat is going to instead of the number of adoptions.
During the last year, the museum gave $25,000 to the Catman2 shelter to help fund a spay/neuter program. It helped pay to spay or neuter more than 500 cats, Sims said. Some of the cats spayed or neuter were feral cats while the others are locals bringing their cats in because they can’t afford to spay or neuter them.
They spay or neuter 100 feral cats a year, reducing the overall number of kittens being born. A feral cat is the result of a domestic cat being abandoned or lost and left to fend for itself.
As a result, the Catman2 shelter has helped reduce the workload for the Jackson County Animal Shelter. They can focus more on animal control issues and less on euthanizing adoptable cats and kittens.
“They killed cats right and left until I got this thing going, and they haven’t put a single cat down in the last two years and that’s because of us,” Sims said.
Sims is very proud of the work he’s done with the Catman2 shelter and has even bigger plans for the museum.
“I want to have a world class museum, which I have here I think right now, it’s a world class museum,” Sims said, “It’s one of a kind.”
“That’s my goal, when I leave this world to leave behind the museum and our cat shelter,” Sims said.
The kinks about the new location are still being worked out and Sims expects to fully move in next year. He wants to make sure that the museum is exactly the way he wants it.
In the meantime, the American Museum of the Housecat opens back up for the season April 2.
