Hilo's Lyman Museum has received the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History for the preservation and interpretation of the Lyman Mission House.

The Lyman Museum is the only recipient of the award in Hawai'i this year.

The award recognizes the museum for work begun in 2002 on an intense research project on the house, its artifacts, the Lyman family, and 19th-century Hilo to more accurately preserve and present the house as a missionary family home.

The Lyman Mission House was built in 1839 as a home for missionaries David and Sarah Lyman, who lived in it until the mid-1880s.