Nobody called it #MeToo in Anne Evans’ day, but her fearless, pioneering spirit would have fit right in with that digital media-driven, social-justice movement.

As the daughter of Colorado territorial governor John Evans, the intensely private yet gregarious Anne skipped marriage and devoted most of her life to elevating fine arts and culture in Denver, founding or helping develop the Denver Art Museum, Denver Public Library, Central City Opera and Civic Center park before her death in 1941.

And the Byers-Evans House Museum — Evans’ meticulously preserved brick home at West 13th Avenue and Bannock Street, and the seed for the surrounding cultural complex that includes most of her beloved institutions — continues pumping out inspiration with the new Center for Colorado Women’s History.

“The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago,” said Jillian Allison, the director of the Byers-Evans House Museum and who will also lead the women’s-history museum. “And if that didn’t happen, do it today.”

On Wednesday, officials will cut the ribbon on the Center for Colorado Women’s History, located inside the existing Byers-Evans House. Allison and her staffers tested public appetite for it last year with programs such as an exhibit about women’s roles in World War I, themed lectures and teas, and a middle-school essay contest.

Attendance jumped 25 percent — to 14,127 — from 11,274 the year before. For Allison, it was proof that women’s history, presented in a compelling way, could reinvigorate flagging interest in her museum.

“We’re at a stage where we want to see what people are responding to and draw that out by adding more programs,” Allison said. “Women’s history is always relevant so we thought, ‘Why not now?’ ”

The museum will operate with a relatively tiny budget of $130,034 and an endowment of about $1 million. But the fact that it exists at all is a triumph for underrepresented voices, said Gov. John Hickenlooper, who supported a $1.5 million increase in the budget for Community Museums of History Colorado, of which the Byers-Evans House is part.

“People such as (Colorado State Historian) Patty Limerick have been talking about doing this for years,” said Hickenlooper, who proclaimed March 21 as Center for Colorado Women’s History Day. “Too often, the history that we all know is told by a fairly narrow group of people and personalities, and women’s history is especially subject to that.”

The creation of this new museum signals more than just renewed interest in women’s stories in the #MeToo age.

Many art and culture museums are fighting for survival as they compete with digital distractions and other for-profit entertainment. The National Endowment for the Arts saw the equivalent of double-digit percentage-point drops in museum attendance from 2012-15, even as the U.S. population grew by more than 33 million people and some museums began offering free admission.

At the same time, audiences have grown more receptive to exhibits featuring female artists, according to a 2016 survey from the Art Newspaper.

“House museums like Byers-Evans were very popular in the 1950s and ’60s, but they’re not quite so popular now,” said History Colorado executive director Steve Turner. “So our board was really supportive of reinventing (Byers-Evans), but also in looking at this as a national model for other house-museums by making it relevant to contemporary audiences.”

Emphasizing social history and taking advantage of #MeToo — which has seen women speak out about sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in recent months — allows History Colorado to recast the aging house-museum, which was built in 1883, as a vital part of the Rocky Mountain West’s progressive cultural fabric.

“Museums are more than ever competing for people’s time, attention and money, and that’s especially the case with house museums,” said Ashley Rogers, a former assistant director of Byers-Evans and who now leads operations at Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation Museum. “It’s important for places like Byers-Evans to be thinking about how they can become vital to their communities, instead of just being novelties or entertainment.”

Part of the appeal of Byers-Evans, which is sandwiched between wings of the Denver Art Museum, is its cozy, remarkably intact portrayal of daily life in the early 20th century.

Named after the prominent families who built and lived in it — including William Byers, the founder of the Rocky Mountain News — the massive house was mostly occupied by women during its residential run.

That makes it an ideal launchpad for discussions about Colorado women’s history, officials say. Colorado citizens, for example, were the first to elect women to the state legislature in 1894. A year earlier, Colorado had become the first state to enfranchise women by popular vote — 25 years before all American women won that right, according to History Colorado.

“In the short term, visitors might not notice a huge difference,” Turner said, referring to the changes on tap as part of the new center. “But everything in the gallery will now be related to women’s history (next up: an exhibit on the 100th anniversary of U.S. suffrage). We’ll create an academic center with three fellowships for scholars to collect stories and cultural materials associated with women’s history. You’ll also see changes reflected in the tours given of the house.”

Turner lobbied Hickenlooper for this year’s increase in his Community Museums budget, nearly doubling it to $3.2 million, which also allowed El Pueblo History Museum, Trinidad History Museum and Ute Indian Museum in Montrose to add staff and programs.

History Colorado operates mostly independent of his office, but Hickenlooper said he’s cheering on the changes from the Capitol.

“I’ve been through it many times, and it really does tell a powerful social story,” he said of Byers-Evans, which he considers a hidden gem in the city. “And isn’t that what every good museum should do?”