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Paul Matthews opened the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum 3 1/2 years ago with memorabilia he had been collecting for 30 years and $40,000 of his retirement money. He has kept the doors open since with the help of a donation box prominently located in a doorway. He said the tiny, tucked-away museum has overcome doubts in order to survive, though on most days no more than a handful of people visit.

"There's no marketing budget. It's by word of mouth," Matthews explained this week. "Some months it's thin. Some months it's thick. We just manage to stay with it."

Today, though, promises to be different. Matthews expects about 300 visitors. To entertain them, he will have an actress on hand portraying Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman.

The reason for the surge in interest is Juneteenth, the state holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 that Union Gen. Gordon Granger announced in Galveston that President Lincoln had ordered freedom for all slaves -- two years before.

Matthews noted that Granger wasn't standing there alone; he was accompanied by as many as 300 black soldiers in Union uniforms to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. Matthews said those black Civil War soldiers would later go on to become buffalo soldiers when the black regiments formed in 1866.

To him, there simply would be no Juneteenth without the black soldiers. He said the museum volunteers make sure those soldiers are remembered.