With the success of the 1939 DeSoto Celebration (marking the 400th anniversary of DeSoto's landing in Florida) and an increase in tourism as the country recovered from the Great Depression, Tallant began to think seriously about exhibiting his collections to a wider audience in a museum setting. In 1941 he opened a museum in the second floor space of his furniture store and called it the Manatee County Museum. While popular with locals, the museum failed to attract tourists, especially during the World War II when tourism in Florida dropped drastically.