William Macy, former chief of the Eastern Museum Laboratory, and James M. Mulcahy entered on duty in May. New to the Park Service, Mulcahy had taught art before seeing combat with the Army in the Pacific. The two began work in Chicago under Russell's critical eye. After becoming familiar with the subjects and standards of accuracy he desired, they set up their studio at the memorial in St. Louis. Their assignment continued until mid-1948 during which they produced a substantial body of good work. When they had finished, Macy moved to the Armed Forces Medical Museum in Washington, where he teamed with former Park Service exhibit construction specialist Herman Van Cott on an extensive exhibition program for the Institute of Pathology. Mulcahy transferred to the reopened Museum Branch laboratory which was in the midst of its first postwar projects.

Appropriations for the 1947 fiscal year made it possible to resume museum development. The Service received $55,600 allocated to prepare and install exhibits in four unfinished park museums: Chickamauga, Guilford Courthouse, Kings Mountain, and Manassas. The Kings Mountain museum lacked only a few of its planned exhibits, but the other three contained only stopgap displays assembled in the empty rooms and cases by local staff. Exhibit proposals approved in the 1930s for Chickamauga and Guilford Courthouse had grown obsolete meanwhile, and Manassas had only the beginnings of an exhibit plan. The slim allotment therefore needed to cover planning as well as preparation. Burns responded by reestablishing the museum laboratory, but on a necessarily modest scale.

The laboratory reopened in December 1946 on the third floor of the Ford's Theatre building in Washington.3 Its two initial employees were Ralph Lewis, curator and assistant chief of what would soon become the Museum Branch, and preparator Albert McClure. They found this a familiar setting, for it was part of the space occupied by the prewar laboratory where both had worked. Much of the old laboratory equipment was present and in good order thanks particularly to Rudy Bauss, another former staff member, who had exercised watchful care over it from his National Capital Parks museum maintenance center elsewhere in the building. Army topographic model builders had used the rooms and equipment for nearly five years before releasing them the preceding day.

Although it permitted an immediate start on exhibit production, the location had two serious disadvantages. Laboratory occupancy constituted a fire risk unacceptable in a historic building, as the Service now realized. With the wholehearted concurrence of the museum staff, Associate Director Arthur E. Demaray insisted that the laboratory remain only until another place could be found and saw to it that an active search began at once. The other disadvantage involved access. All materials and supplies had to be hand-carried up long flights of stairs from busy 10th Street or else snaked through alleys and hauled up by block and tackle.4 Finished exhibits, often larger and heavier, had to leave the building by the same awkward and hazardous routes.

McClure, a five-year veteran of the prewar laboratory who had been part of the Army topographic model unit, began immediately on a job that did not need a new plan: redoing a badly worn relief map from the Chickamauga museum. With Lewis's help he made a new cast from the old model, painted it using the latest techniques, and finished it with his skillful hand lettering. Burns then enlisted him for an assignment not connected with the laboratory: caring for the rich furnishings at Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. This responsibility, later extended to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home nearby, fully engaged his talents until he retired 22 years later.

In the absence of viable plans for the exhibits to be constructed, staffing increased at a cautious rate. Frank Buffmire reported to the laboratory in January 1947 as a second preparator. He had worked on the Kings Mountain exhibits in 1940-41, and after war service he had gained recognition as an artist in his native Wisconsin. He brought the laboratory a combination of skills, temperament, and judgment that made him a natural leader there for the rest of his life. Robert Scherer entered on duty in March as a third preparator. New to the Park Service, he came with excellent training from the American Museum of Natural History and could produce admirably almost any kind of exhibit work required. Later he became chief preparator and remained until the laboratory moved out of Washington. To replace McClure Burns selected Laurence Cone, who transferred from a park ranger position at Natchez Trace Parkway in June. More a craftsman than a schooled artist, Cone carried his share of exhibit production creditably until becoming a laboratory curator several years later. In 1957 he transferred to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and moved to the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma. The arrival of James Mulcahy in July 1948 completed the exhibit preparation roster for the first phase of the new laboratory.