This paper is the outcome of a research inquiry across archival resources: Malbork Castle Museum in-house archives and Scientific Documentation Department, and records sourced in Malbork Castle Museum in-house archives currently forming part of the Malbork resource of the State Archives in Gdańsk. The article intends to showcase the Malbork Castle’s reality in the years 1954-61, the earliest period of Malbork guides’ presence at the castle (before the museum was formed), and in the first year of the museum’s activity. This was a particularly interesting time in the castle’s post-war history; while largely in ruin, the edifice began garnering increased interest as a tourist destination. The paper discusses the multifaceted endeavours of the castle’s administrator at the time: the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society. The tragic fire of the night of September 8th/9th 1959 which consumed the premises of what had been a Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society shelter housed by the north wing of the Middle Castle – as well as roofing of the north and west wings – proved a watershed to the period in question. The incident sealed the destiny of the fortress in Malbork, ultimately resulting in establishing the Malbork Castle Museum on January 1st 1961. Allowing the extraordinarily difficult process to be traced, the archival inquiry has also revealed multiple issues faced by the Museum’s earliest museum scientists and guides. Exhibition-related matters are crucial to the paper. While held as early as 1954, the first exhibits were temporary in nature. Preparations for permanent exhibitions on castle premises only began in 1960. Organising and managing tourist traffic, the design of sightseeing routes across the castle included, are of particular interest. The paper is by no means exhaustive, requiring further archival studies, their delivery difficult for reasons of incomplete archival records.