At a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning, Charles Bowery, Executive Director of the Army's Center of Military History, said the project "breathed new life into one of the Army's oldest museums."
"A precious resource that is now literally one of a kind, it's the only one of our arsenal systems that still remains in operation and it's the only museum in our system that tells the story of these arsenal operations and the nation's organic industrial base."
Bowery said the exhibits had become somewhat dated and the planning to re-do the museum actually started in 2016 with a town hall meeting for local residents.
Now instead of just being a collection of objects from the Arsenal's history, he calls it a "carefully curated resource for education and civil-military relations."
Major General David Wilson, Commanding General of the Army Sustainment Command, said this is the army's second oldest museum, second only to the museum at West Point.
"And has always continued to tell the stories of those whose footsteps we currently walk in. There are more than 160 years of history on the land that we are presently sitting on and standing on today and as we open the doors of this great museum, we share the stories of that history."
The museum first opened in 1905 as the Ordinance Museum of Rock Island.