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Early next week, the 98 historic and extremely rare hand-painted scenic theater drops in Winona’s Masonic Temple will be rolled up and stored away — indefinitely.

But before that happens, the city of Winona is giving the public a chance to see some of the most striking of the drops. There will be an open house and viewing Monday from 4:30 to 7 p.m. where there will be displays of five of the full set scenes, which each consist of multiple hand-painted drops.

There is hope the drops won’t be stored away forever, and a volunteer group has already formed to help the city make sure that doesn’t happen, but at the moment the future of the drops are unclear.

The city chose to store them this spring after an engineer’s report found that the rigging system was dangerous, and that the city had two options: Spend an estimated $1-2 million to replace the rigging system, as well as likely replace the temple’s roof, or clean and store the drops.

The price tag doesn’t end there, either — ongoing reports on repairing the drops themselves, many of which are in poor condition, put the price tag at anywhere from $500,000 to $750,000.

Also, of course, the aging Masonic Temple also requires ongoing maintenance.