[1] The museum operates the Patricia Lubben Bassett Art Education Center, opened in 1998,[2] as a learning facility.

The facility houses two classrooms, a ceramics studio, and research library, all of which supports a museum-school-community creative exchange that provides arts education opportunities for all ages.

The Robert H. Goddard Planetarium was built through an initiative shared by the museum and the Roswell Independent School District in 1968.

[4] The museum was founded in 1936, after funding from New Mexico's Works Progress Administration (WPA) (authorized by manager Lea Rowland), with the goal of storing Southeastern New Mexican items for the local historical and archaeological society and acting as a community center.

A donor program brought in works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, John Marin, and others.