More than 50,000 visitors every year step in to the Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs. It's a step back in time to see artifacts from the city's history. But now, the leaders of the city may have no choice but to shut down this treasure trove of history.

The major problem with the plan to close the museum at the end of the year, is that museum administrators now have to plan for what will happen to everything inside the museum once it's closed for good.

Museum Director Matt Mayberry says museums are about real artifacts, real paintings and real documents. "Right now," he says, "The worst case scenario, next year, we will go into mothball mode."

With the doors closed, those treasures will become unavailable for public view. Maybe, eventually taken away.

Mayberry adds, "We're in a position where we're really doing something unprecedented. I, we, can't find any good model, nation-wide, for a museum of our size and scope, that is going through what we're going through, closing down, and maybe eventually facing the challenge of disposing of everything."

Matt Mayberry says his dream is that someone will step in and save all that's held in the museum, to keep it where it belongs. That would take private funding or a major endowment, perhaps.

Says Mayberry, "It's kind of like i want to hug every object, and protect it.