1905 Historical Souvenir now back in print

Posted on by August 28, 2021

The 1905 Historical Souvenir by J.F. Wilcox has always been one of my favorites for county history. It was put together in 1904 and published in 1905. Our historical society  first reprinted it in 1979. After being out of print for a few years now it is back in a softbound version and heavily indexed for people, places, businesses, churches, schools, events, crime and more. The volume contains early history of the county and its people up to its publication and contains many biographical features of local businessmen and prominent citizens. A real must have book for local historians. Continue reading →

Helen Lind authored books transferred to WCHS

Posted on by August 26, 2021

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For decades, one of our own historical society members, Helen Sutt Lind, known to us as “cemetery granny” has painstakingly created literally dozens of books that are used on a daily basis. Her books have become the foundation of research by all of us here and countless researchers and authors. Helen spent years transcribing county records at the court house and local newspapers on microfilm in addition to tromping through current and forgotten cemeteries of the county auditing gravestones. Helen was often but not always accompanied by one of our other members, Charla Murphy, who worked jointly with Helen on a number of projects.

Helen has graciously passed her trove of book master copies to the historical society so that her years of research can continue to be republished into the future.  For that, we can’t thank Helen enough. A list of Helen’s books now in the possession of and sold by the historical society that were recently added are as follows and don’t include books that Helen had previously allowed us the permissions to. All are available for purchase through the museum book store. Continue reading →

Crainville History Book now available and New Indexing added

Posted on by August 23, 2021

The Williamson County Historical Society recently received permissions to reproduce the book “The History of the Village of Crainville” which was no longer in print and was only originally available in very limited quantities. The book has been reproduced and thanks to one of the original contributors a number of photographs have been added as well as an exhaustive index. The book is available through the museum book store and sells for $15.

An index was also created for the book “1965 Johnston City Homecoming Souvenir Program.” This book contains a history of Johnston City from its beginning up through 1965. The index contains over 1,500 references to places and peoples names. Both the Crainville and Johnston City book indexes have been added to our  Master Local History Index.

History of Crainville and 1922-23 Birth Records Indexing added

Posted on by July 18, 2021

History of the Village of Crainville

We have recently added indexing from two sources. The first source is the History of the Village of Crainville which contains a concise early history of the Village and some lineage of the Crain family responsible for its beginnings. This indexing was added to our Master Local History Index.

The second source added is a partial accounting of Williamson County Birth Record Book 15 covering births that occurred from June 1923 through May 1924. This indexing was added to our Misc. County Records Index.

Both indexes can be found under the Records tab from our main menu.

WSIL TV Features WCHS Museum

Posted on by July 7, 2021

WSIL TV reporter Brooke Schlyer featured our historical society on Wednesday morning, July 7th, 2021. WCHS President, Sam Lattuca and WCHS coordinator/curator Sharon Vansaghi were on hand at the museum at 4:30 A.M. in order to accommodate the news report related to our recent reopening after having been closed for over a year due to the pandemic. The main features were work that had been done on new and reworked displays accomplished during the shutdown. Brooke ran live broadcasts with Sam and Sharon at 5, 5:30, 6 and 6:30 and put together some recorded interviews for programming that aired in evening broadcasts. The link below will take you to the Channel 3 live airings.

Visitors welcomed back to renovations, new exhibits (wsiltv.com)