Professor George Gilbert Pond was the first person to make a significant effort to establish a permanent Priestley museum at the Priestley House. After raising sufficient funds, he managed to purchase the home at auction for $6,000 from Scott's heirs on November 24, 1919 ($  in ). Pond believed that construction of a new railroad line would destroy the house, and so intended to move it to Pennsylvania State College (now Pennsylvania State University). However, he died on May 20, 1920 before this plan could be enacted; the planned rail line was never built and the house proved too fragile to move. The college established a memorial fund in Pond's honor and retained the house as a museum, although Pond's children did not formally transfer the house to the college until April 14, 1932. Some restoration of the house was done in the 1920s, and a small, brick building—intended as a fireproof museum for Priestley's books and scientific apparatus—was built on the grounds and dedicated to Pond's memory in 1926. In 1941 the state legislature tried to have the State Historical Commission administer the house as a museum, but Governor Arthur James vetoed the plan for lack of funding.