The Atlas Cement Memorial Museum – the only museum of its kind in the United States – opens for its 16th season Sunday, May 12.

The interactive museum, located on Laubach Avenue, Northampton, is more than just a collection of artifacts from the cement industry. It includes displays from decades past and rare items from Atlas and other cement plants in the Lehigh Valley. The Atlas museum is more than a visit to the past; it's a slice of living history.

The memorabilia on display includes items donated by families of former cement workers, executives and the plants themselves. Some of the items on display are new this year.

More than 100,000 people have toured the museum since it opened in 1997. More than 1,000 toured the facility in 2012 alone. Last year, a special delegation from the Republic of China and a Spanish contingent who have taken ownership of Keystone Cement Company in East Allen Township toured the facility.

This month, 500 fourth-graders from the Northampton Area School District will tour the museum as part of their curriculum.

Middle school students are grouped into teams named after the cement plants from the region.

The tour includes the names of Atlas workers engraved on plates as well as cement bags and signs from the plants. Inside, visitors come face to face with a talking mechanical horse, view a huge mural, enjoy interactive exhibits and look over Atlas records of cement it furnished for the construction of the Panama Canal and Empire State Building New York City.

Items from the former office and laboratory from Atlas Cement are also on display, as is a locomotive train bell from the Northampton & Bath Railroad and a beer bottle from Tru Blue Brewery in the borough.

Museum Curator Ed Pany said this year a new display will document the cement career of Roland Roth of Nazareth, including union medallions from the 1930s and memorabilia from the Local 18 Nazareth Cement Softball Champions.

Also included is a baseball signed by Northampton Area High School baseball great Brian Schneider, who retired from the Philadelphia Phillies in 2012.

Displays from Lafarge, Keystone, Essroc, Lehigh Heidelberg and Hercules cement plants receive much attention. Also inside the museum is a huge photograph in subdued colors and workers shoes, with the laces open, in an empty changing room.

Along with Pany, museum guides are Larry Oberly, LeRoy Brobst and Sakluann Madden.

The museum will be open 1-3 p.m. the first and third Sundays of the month, closing its doors for the season Sept. 22. However, Ed Pany said tours are held throughout the year for organizations, schools, church groups, cement plant workers and unions.