The Yeiser art center located at Paducah, Kentucky was founded in the year 1957. It was formerly called as the Paducah Art Guild and a nonprofit center. Its founder Mary Yeiser and a few of her friends decided that there should be something to be done to the lack of visual arts in their area. The mission of the guild was to promote the creation and appreciation of the visual arts and to become a city museum.

The Guild’s first exhibit was supplied by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and consisted of American woodcarving from the National Gallery of Art Index of American Design. Mary Yeiser also convinced many artists to lend pieces of their work for exhibits, and a piece was purchased from each exhibit. This practice would continue, and became the permanent collection of the Guild.

After a devastating fire destroyed Carnegie Library, where the first meeting was held, the city of Paducah offered the Guild a space in the Market House building, and on March 4, 1963, the Market House became the Guild’s new home.