While we are currently in a open on Saturday only mode during the winter at the museum we currently have a few projects rolling along. We spent the month of December cleaning and reorganizing our attic storage area. When our roof was replaced in November a lot of debris fell through creating a mess so that room is all cleaned, newly reorganized and taken care of. After completing that we have spent the month of January disassembling, cleaning, repairing, repainting and reworking the displays on the third floor of the museum. New additional lighting has been added since it was always just a bit too dark on that floor. It will take us at least another solid month or more to finish reworking the entire third floor but the work will be time and resources well spent when finished.
It turned out to be an expensive year for our museum this year. Earlier in the year a water leak was detected in our boiler system that required draining the hot water radiator system, repairing the problem and refilling the system at a cost of nearly $2,000. The work was done by Fowler Heating and Air back in August while the system would normally be down anyway and the system is hopefully now ready for another string of winter heating seasons.
After having a series of water leaks in the roofing over the last few years it was decided this year to have all of our roofing replaced. Three estimates were obtained in the summer and in late October and into November the shingled roof was torn off and replaced and then the three flat roofed areas of the building were replaced. The bid was won by Back to Normal Construction (B2N) and cost $32,400.
Needless to say the work has dipped seriously into our savings, so hopefully we are done with large expenses for a while. If anyone can help with donations, it would certainly be appreciated so that we can continue our work and maintaining a fine old building that dates to 1913.
The Williamson County Historical Society Museum and Library has switched over to its winter hours of operation. From Thanksgiving till March 1 the museum goes down to being open on Saturdays only from 9:30 till 3:00 P.M. The building runs on a gas fired boiler for radiator heat and costs about $400 a month just to keep it at 55 degrees so this saves on heat costs. In addition, this time of the year is when volunteers get an opportunity to rework displays and do maintenance work on the building which we normally wouldn’t have time for the rest of the year.
Everyone is encouraged to visit the museum on Saturdays through the holiday season and learn about local history and how early families had to live their lives. Perhaps, this may also be the time to start doing some family genealogy which we are very geared for in our library. Even if you haven’t started researching your family yet, we can help you with that as well.
For the experienced family researchers, don’t forget that we have an extensive book indexing system on our website with about three quarters of a million references relating back to our library research material or early court records. If you find something of interest in our indexes, just email us the book source and page number and we can scan the page and email it back to you.
The newly created index to the book “Personal Memoirs of James W. Turner” have been added to our Master Local History Index. The index contains over a thousand references to people, places, schools and events. Turner was instrumental in the development of our counties early school system, taught in several of its schools and was also instrumental in the founding of Crab Orchard Academy located in Crab Orchard Illinois. The index can be viewed separately below.
Carol M. Highsmith shooting photos for Library of Congress
On October 8, 2019 Carol M. Highsmith graced the Williamson County Historical Society Museum. As a renowned photographer she has been donating her images to the Library of Congress since 1992.
Her series of images called, Carol M. Highsmith’s America, contains images across America documenting our history while it is still around. Continue reading