Pauls Valley’s Toy and Action Figure Museum is closing its doors.
The attraction will close permanently Aug. 30, according to the museum’s Executive Director and Curator Kevin Stark.
Stark made the announcement Tuesday morning during a press conference at the museum, attended by local media, museum supporters and at least two of the museum’s seven board members.
Reading from a prepared statement, Stark said the museum’s closure is in response to a lack of support from the City of Pauls Valley, specifically and most recently for billboard advertising.
“The reason the museum is closing is the Pauls Valley Tourism Board and the Pauls Valley City Council have pulled the Toy Museum’s billboard advertising and have decided that budgeting for one-day events is worth more to Pauls Valley than a year-round attraction,” Stark said. “Their budget this year only benefits events and each of those events are run by the city. No outside nonprofit organizations are getting any significant funding help from Pauls Valley Tourism.”
According to Pauls Valley officials, the museum was one of a handful of local organizations to miss a March 1 deadline—which is a new requirement for 2026—to get event funding requests to the tourism board for the 2026-2027 budget year.
Stark acknowledged during Tuesday’s press conference that the museum had not made its annual request before the March deadline, as they were unaware of the new requirement, but said the non-profit museum was not asking for event funding, stating that for the last several years the museum has only received tourism funding for billboard advertising.
“The Toy Museum relies heavily on billboard advertising to bring travelers to the downtown area and at least 80% of our visitors name the billboards as to why they got off I-35 and came into the downtown area to see the Toy Museum. Without the billboards the museum and the whole downtown area loses a vital part of advertising,” Stark said. “Any business that loses 80%—or even 50%—of its customer base is going to find it hard to stay open. So, in losing the billboards, it is the death knell of the museum.”
Toy and Action Figure Museum Board President Ryan Mayberry spoke to the city council during the July 14 regular council meeting regarding the billboard funding. The museum requested $18,000 to pay for annual billboard rental and new vinyl for two billboards located on I-35, one south of Pauls Valley in the Springer area and another north between Pauls Valley and Norman.
During that meeting council members told Mayberry the $18,000 was a “big ask,” and was more than half of tourism’s budget for FY2026-2027.
“We all agree it’s a wonderful spot and a unique addition to Pauls Valley,” Councilmember Bonnie Meisel said, but then pointed to the missed funding request deadline.
The council agreed during the discussion that funding the request would be unfair to other organizations that had also missed the tourism board’s deadline. Tourism director Tawni Huggans added that tourism board guidelines require tourism-funded advertising to be outside a 60-mile radius of Pauls Valley and questioned whether the billboards met that requirement.
During the meeting, Councilmember Jonathan Grimmett offered to consider options for at least partially funding the billboards with non-city funds, telling Mayberry to bring information about the billboard rental to him at his place of business.
Stark said Tuesday while the museum itself will close at the end of August, the collection could eventually morph into a virtual or traveling museum. He said it could also be relocated if another community is interested in supporting it and it was the right fit.
View Tuesday’s press conference here.
Look for additional coverage about the museum’s closure in Friday’s issue of the Garvin County News Star.
