Wanted: Administrative Assistant

The Rice County Historical Society is seeking a 25 hr/wk Administrative Assistant. The ideal candidate will have excellent people skills, assisting customers in a positive, helpful and professional manner. Must have excellent written and oral communication skills. Job includes office management, heavy computer use and general museum responsibilities. Send cover letter, resume and references to: Rice County Historical Society, 1814 NW 2^nd Ave., Faribault, MN 55021 or rchs@rchistory.org.

Apprentice: Noah

The Rice County Historical Society has recently begun a new high school volunteer program, the Museum Apprentice Program. The next round of orientation will begin on September 25. Apprentices in grades 8-12 will meet every Tuesday from 3:30-5:30 and learn what is involved with work at a museum, and will do independent projects involving research, collections, exhibits and more!

Below is a testimonial from a current MAPster:

My name is Noah and I have been volunteering at the Rice County Historical Society for the last three months as a member of the MAP program.  During the MAP program I have been kept busy doing many different kinds of interesting tasks around the museum.  Recently, I have been repairing old, worn books in the Rare Book Room.  My time hasn’t just been about repairing books though.  I have helped catalog photos, move files, and research bikes as well.  Another job I have had was helping with the log cabin during the fair.

I currently live in Faribault, with no intention of moving away.  I am homeschooled, and in the eighth grade.  Being the eldest child, I have three younger siblings; two sisters and one brother.  Some of the things I enjoy are playing games and reading.  Spending time with my family is also something that I enjoy.  I have fun doing things in my homeschool group.  Currently I have been going over to a friend’s house every two weeks to play games with him and a few other friends.  I have recently caught wind that our film group may be starting up again soon.  The group stopped making films for a while because both the director and producer/main cameraman got behind on their schoolwork and had to catch up.  Our group (Phantom Films) has turned out a number of short movies, and it’s a blast doing them, so I can’t wait to start doing it again.

It has been enjoyable experience volunteering here at Rice County Historical Society.  I’ve gotten to work on interesting projects, sit around all day at the fair, and spend time with different people.  Who knows what I will be doing here next!

Volunteer Spotlight: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt became connected to the Rice County Historical Society through his passion for collecting artifacts from the former Fleckenstein Brewery. After getting to know the staff at the RCHS Museum, Schmidt decided he wanted to be part of “a wonderful group of people that likes to preserve the history of Faribault and Rice County.”

Schmidt, who lives in Faribault, has been a volunteer for the past three years. He gives of his time as a member of the collections committee, fair committee, buildings and grounds committee, and helps in any other way he can such as hanging signs in Heritage Hall prior to the 2012 Rice County Fair.

For just over 20 years, he has worked for MOM Brands (Malt-O-Meal). He also worked at the former Treasure Cave blue cheese factory in Faribault for 11 years and for the United States Postal Service for one year. During his high school years, he worked for Larry Bhur at Sears (where Napa is located today).

Schmidt was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1962, and moved to Faribault in the early 1970s with his family. Today he is married with a house in Faribault, and he and wife, Toni, have two sons, Derek and Jarid.

His main hobby is learning as much as he can about Fleckenstein Brewery and collecting artifacts from that former Faribault business. He also likes to fish, travel, browse at garage sales, and learn new historic facts about Faribault and Rice County. 

Volunteer Spotlight: Shirley Rockman

Shirley Rockman of Faribault enjoys her volunteer duties of filling in at the reception desk at the Rice County Historical Society Museum on days when the part-time administrative assistant is off.

What she likes best about volunteering is meeting and helping people who phone or stop in at the museum. She has been a volunteer at the RCHS Museum for the past six months. She learned about volunteer opportunities that fit her interest while attending a volunteer appreciation event at the RCHS with her husband, LeRoy Rockman, who is also a volunteer for the organization.

Shirley worked for 19 years at the Faribault Daily News; five years at Sheldahl in Northfield; and five years at Hoffmann Printing in Faribault, before retiring. She has much experience working with people, which has been a valuable help to RCHS. She also has computer skills, so helps out not only by answering the phone at the RCHS Museum, but with a variety of computer task as well as filing.

She and her husband have two daughters and two grandsons. They both grew up in Rice County. Shirley is also a volunteer for the Faribault Hospice program, and her summertime hobby is home canning.

Volunteer Spotlight: Marilyn Garwood

Marilyn Garwood of Mendota Heights travels weekly to Faribault to volunteer at the Rice County Historical Society Museum.

What she likes best about volunteering is meeting new people and learning about the museum functions, and facts about Rice County history, even though she didn’t ever live here.

Garwood grew up in St. Paul. She has lived in Mendota Heights for many years. She began volunteering at the RCHS Museum 8 ½ years ago when her daughter, Sue Garwood of Northfield, became executive director of the RCHS.

She does a variety of work during her weekly trips to the museum, filing, typing, proofing, cleaning, shopping, answering the phones - doing just about anything her daughter, Sue asks her to do.

Her initial reason for volunteering was to spend time with her daughter, who was looking for volunteer help after she took over as director of the RCHS. As the years went on, she became friends with other volunteers. She also worked during most of the past eight Rice County Fairs, helping with the task of overseeing the historical buildings on the fairgrounds that are open during the fair and include the log cabin, one-room school house, church and Harvest and Heritage Halls, besides the museum.

Garwood is a widow with three grown children, who include two sons besides her daughter, Sue. She has five grandchildren, three boys and two girls. She is a retired nurse and currently serves as a parish nurse for the Episcopal church she attends. Her hobbies are reading, walking, travel and spending time with family and friends.

Indian Artifact Exhibit Re-Design

Hello, I am Bridgette Reuvers-Slinger, a student from Hamline University, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Sociology. I have been interning at the Rice County Historical Society for about two and a half weeks now. Sue Garwood has asked me to help out with a display that they have that she feels is not up to speed. This has become my daily project.

The collection at hand is a set of archaic stone tools that were donated in the 1930s that were not cataloged and very little was known about the tools. I am in the process of cleaning old museum wax off of the tools, putting new accession numbers on each tool, measuring and documenting them, and writing descriptions about each individual tool. The descriptions that I have been writing include things such as potential names and how they were made. I have also spent a lot of time reading and researching not only the time periods but also the material of the tools.

One of the neat things that I have encountered thus far is one of the tools that I had initially thought was used for animal hide scraping. I had thought this because of the shape of the tool and the way that it compared to the other tools. After some more investigating and research I realized that the tool was not only categorized in the wrong time period but that it was not a scraping tool at all. After my research, I determined it to be a knife from an earlier time period. Thus far I have found three more tools that were incorrectly categorized as far as time periods. I have been using the physical evidence of the tools to try and decipher the time period. There are many books that are available that have visual representations of the tools that I have used for comparisons. 

My end goal is to have the exhibit completely re-designed by the end of the month. One of the modifications includes a new way to display the tools in the collection. Perhaps instead of setting it up chronologically it would be more visually appealing to display the tools by the function. With some volunteer and staff assistance, I have already taken the background fabric off of the display and replaced it with new clean fabric. Soon I will start to write draft exhibit labels that will accompany the display.  

Dalby Database Search Tips

Here is a list of search tips for using our most valuable resource for Southern Minnesota history research, www.dalbydata.com. These tips come directly from the the man behind the website, John Dalby himself.

Cemeteries

All Dodge, Goodhue, Le Sueur, Rice,  Steele and Waseca County Cemeteries are coded.

Some cemeteries are coded in the following counties

Blue Earth, Carver, Dakota, Grant, Lac Qui Parle, McLeod, Morrison, Ramsey, Scott and Sibley, Lyon and many more

Click on Complete Cemetery Code List,  Scroll down to find name of the cemetery you wish to search or click on COUNTY to sort and scroll down to see all in the County. The code for the cemetery is after the cemetery name.  Go back to the main screen and enter the code in the Section box and click search. 

Farm Burials Code

Goodhue County – GCFB

Rice County – RCFB

Steele County - SCFB

Enter the code into the SECTION box and click search.  If more than 1000

enter the first letter of the last name in the LAST NAME box 

With the code in the SECTION box enter one of the following in the NOTES box, Vet..,Accident, Drown, Killed, Fire, a surname, a date in the BIRTH or DEATH box, etc.  

Maple Lawn Cemetery - To see all in section M, search MEN M  To see all in lot 15, search MEN M-15. 

The Cemetery File has over 900,000 records.  You can search any field.  If not sure of spelling  (example) type  R in last name field and R in first name field and click on search. 

In the notes field search DROWN.  In the death date field search OCT/2007 it will show all that died in that month.  In the Notes Field search for Hinckley and you will find all known that died in the Hinckley fire in 1894.  Search HOLLOW TREE in the notes field for a interesting story.

Census

Search household number to find everyone in that household.  Over 48,000 entries.

Owatonna Orphanage Kids.  Over 1200 entries. 1900-10-20-30. Search 10482 in the Household Field.

Church Records

Dakota County - East Christiana

Goodhue County - Aspelund - Gol - Hauge - Holden

Rice County - Christdala, Eklund, Faribault Mengihet - First English - Fox Lake - Immanuel - Markers - Zion.

Steele County - Moland - Sacred Heart, Owatonna

City Directory

In the date field type 1865 in the city field type FARIBAULT, in the address field type MAIN and then click search.  This will show everyone on Main Street in Faribault in 1865.

Type 1018 in the address field and Faribault in the city field, click search.  This shows everybody living at that address in those years listed.  Also in this file is a business directory showing all businesses in every town in Minnesota and the Dakota territory in 1880 and 1865.

The 1880 directory is a business directory of the State of Minnesota and the Dakota Territory.  Search Hennepin County in the City Field, search Yankton in the City Field for all in Yankton, South Dakota.  Search Saloon in the Occupation Field and 1880 in the Date Field, search NUTTING in occupation field and 1957 in date field to see all working at Nutting Truck & Castor in 1957.

Civil War

Civil War File contains 26,000 names & data of Civil War veterans who mustered in the State of Mn. Enter RICE in the County Box and click search to see all that mustered in Rice County.

Churches

Search “Newspaper Articles” for “Church” in the Last Name field

County/Township Histories Individual Biographies

Search “Newspaper Articles” by Last Name.

Faribault History

Search “Newspaper Articles” for “Faribault” in the “Last Name” field, and in the “First Name” field search: City Of, Industries, Churches, State Institutions, Organizations, Early Milling

Lygin Studio Negatives

Search “People in Books” by name, or search “Historical” in the book field or “Lygin” in the Township field.

Military

The “Military” book refers to the book compiled by John Dalby titled “Rice County Military Personnel, Volume I: War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I” (355.3 JD)

Mills

Search “Newspaper Articles” for “Grist Mill, Flour Mill, etc” in the “Data” field.

Search “Newspaper Articles” for the township or village in the “Last Name” field.

Newspaper Articles

Search Cheese Factory in the data field.  These are headlines to articles from Rice County Newspapers and also some articles.  

Search the name of a county, township or village in the Last Name Field and read their history.

Northfield Bank Raid

Search “Newspaper Articles” for “James” in the “Land Name” field.

Obituaries

Obits starting in 1858,   Search the Date Field for 1875 to see all obits in that year.  

Type MAPLE LAWN in the Notes Field and click search to read 1000 obits on interments in Maple Lawn Cemetery.  Type A in the last name field along with Maple Lawn in the notes field and search and continue with B, C, etc

The OBITUARIES FILE also contains biographies of early settlers throughout the state of Minnesota.  In the notes field search RAMSEY COUNTY to see all in that County.  We add to this file daily.

Owatonna Orphanage Orphanage Census

Search “Census” for “10482” in the “Household” field. Years available are 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930.

People in Books

Search CANNON CITY in the NOTES FIELD and 1895 in the YEAR FIELD.  This will show everyone in Cannon City Township in 1895.

Search CANNON CITY in the TOWNSHIP FIELD and 21 in the SECTION FIELD.  This will show everyone living in section 21 in Cannon City Township from the different books we have entered.

Population Lists

Search “People in Books” for the township in the “Notes” field and the year in the year field. Also enter section number, and it will show you everyone living in the section of the township.

Rural Schools

Search “People in Books” for “Dist. XX” or “No. XX” in the “Page” field to see the students in the years mentioned.

Search “Newspaper Articles” for “District No. XX” in the “Notes” field.

Sioux Massacre

Search the Last Name Field in the Newspaper Articles File for INDIAN.

Who’s Who in Rice County

Entered in “Obituaries”; search “Mea Who’s Who” in the notes field.

Yearbooks

You can now search the following schools and years for students, etc in the People In Books File.

Example - Enter Faribault in the Book Field, 1950 in the Date Field and click search.  Search only the first name in the Book Field like Shattuck, Northfield, etc.

With the name of a selected school in the Book Field and a selected date in the Date Field and any of the following in the Township Field,  Student, Teacher, Staff, Faculty, 7, 8 Freshmen, Sophmore, Senior, School Board or School Bus Driver (Northfield Only)  and click search.

Gopher's inspirational Heisman speech after Pearl Harbor found

BRUCE SMITH:  This piece ran on KARE 11 on 12/7/11 to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Waterford Iron Bridge

The Waterford Iron Bridge was constructed in 1909 by the Hennepin Bridge Company. The funding was provided by  Dakota County and Waterford Township.  Project management included an unusual twist in the funding and contracting process. In the past (early 1900's) the County would provide the funding to the townships FIRST, and then the township would schedule the project. This resulted in many projects not being completed, as the Townships or Cities would spend the funding on other things rather than undertaking or completing the funded project. To  prevent this with the Waterford Bridge project, the Dakota County surveyor was selected to design the bridge and the County would choose the contractor, with the Township providing the funding in advance for the project.

The design developed by Charles Forbes was innovative for it's time, as it incorporated the "hot weld" method of bolts and a "through" truss design called "camel back". Testament to the design and construction techniques is the fact that the bridge was continuous use from 1909-2009 for vehicle traffic. It is one of the last standing of it's type, and to the best of our knowledge the only one still in use.

Now, and moving forward, with additional repair work the bridge will continue to serve the Township as a pedestrian bridge for many years to come. Floods have proven to be a challenge, repairs to one of the abutments were done in the early 1980's after being it was damaged by flood waters. Although, the 2010 flood waters reached the very bottom of the bridge, the bridge did not suffer damage. But the bridge does need help.

         Bridge Future

Waterford Township has maintained this bridge for the past 100 years and will continue to do so. We will work toward providing a safe pedestrian bridge for hikers from the Carleton Arboretum or bicyclists from the local area

         Bridge Contest

American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have chosen 25 historic places in the Twin Cites area to participate in  Partners in Preservation, a philanthropic program that encourages members of the community to vote on Facebook for the local historic places the communicty  wants to see preservation funding used for.

We can support Waterford Township, beginning September 20^th, 2011 and continuing through October 12, 2011 by going to Partners inPreservation on Facebook. At the Partners in Preservation site, there  will a list of the 25 historic sites that are competing for the grants from American Express. Click on the “Waterford Iron Bridge” and your vote will be counted! You can vote once a day, every day till the 12^th of October!. Have no fears about voting daily, this is not a poll, but about measuring the intensity of support, and nothing says” this is the one” more than your daily vote!

Once the voting concludes, the historic place with the most votes is guaranteed its full grant request, then the rest of the million dollars will be awarded by American Express, National Historic Trust for Preservation and local civic and community leaders will determine how the rest of the million dollars will be awarded.

For more information find  us on Twitter at WaterfordBridg1, or  contact Liz Messner  507.581.9067   lmessner@rconnect.com or Janalee Cooper 507.202.0702  janaleejcooper@gmail.com

Volunteer Spotlight: Loren Dahle

Loren Dahle of Morristown began volunteering eight years ago for the Rice County Historical Society after he became a RCHS board member representing the Morristown Historical Society chapter. 

For many years he was a farmer and milked cows. Then, he earned an associate degree in food inspection and manufacturing from the former University of Minnesota, Waseca, a college that specialized in offering various agricultural-related degrees.

After receiving his associated degree, Dahle was hired by Beatrice Cheese to be the field man for the former Treasure Cave Blue Cheese plant in Faribault. He worked with suppliers of milk to the plant to assure quality milk being delivered to the plant. He held the position until the Faribault plant closed in the mid-1990s and production of Treasure Cave Blue Cheese was shifted to Wisconsin.   Today he is retired, and the cropland on his family’s farm north of Morristown, rented out.

Dahle is vice president of the Morristown Historical Society. He also serves as secretary for the RCHS Board, on the RCHS’s buildings and grounds committee, and as a member of that committee, volunteers for many hours for projects helping maintain the society’s buildings and grounds around them.

Dahle’s passion is the Morristown Feed Mill, which is open for tours during the community’s annual Dam Days Festival. He helps keep the grind stone working so grain can be ground in the old mill as a demonstration to children of today as to how small town feed mills used to operate. The mill’s stone is turn by a recreated water-wheel that uses water from the Cannon River.

Anyone interested in volunteering to help the Rice County Historical Society can call the museum at 507-332-2121.

Unidentified Photos

In accessioning our photographs, we often come across photos that are unlabeled. Can you help us identify any of these photos?  (Click on each image for a larger view.)

The following 4 photos (and the one above) are of an unknown church and came with the 2003.58 accession. Can you recognize the church? Where is it?

The following photo may be from the Faribault Regional Center, but we are not sure. It came from the 197?.01 accession.




This may be the Morristown Barber Shop. Do you know for sure? It came from the 199?.13 accession.

Is this a school or confirmation class? Is it at the west entrance of the Faribault Junior High School? It also came from the 199?.13 accession.

Does anybody know who this man is?

AVIATION: Record-breaking endurance flight (Clip 1)

In preparation for giving a program on Dale "Red" Jackson at the Faribault Rotary club this Wednesday at noon, I wandered around the Internet looking for any additional visual images I could use for the PowerPoint. Several years ago when I'd first pulled together visuals for our exhibit on Red I had stumbled upon a very grainy (and wildly expensive) clip of he and his partner, Forest O'Brine. As is listed below the clip, "'St Louis Robin' aircraft welcomed by crowds after record-breaking endurance flight (420 hours) by Forrest O'Brine and Dale 'Red' Jackson." This was filmed July 1929.

We'd love to purchase this but as of the writing of this quick blog, it was listed as £816.00 or $1,333. As wonderful as this clip is, that price is a bit steep. I first located the link before we were technologically connected here at the museum but now that we have the platform, I thought it might be fun to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it. (note: No need to turn up your volume, it is silent.)

AVIATION: Record-breaking endurance flight (Clip 1)

Unidentified Photos in a New Collection

We recently accepted a collection of images and books into the Rice County Historical Society Collection. Four of the images, however, were not identified. The donor was certain, however, they had some kind of Rice County connection.

Can you help us identify them?

 Group of soldiers, probably from World War I...but who are they?

This photo was taken in 1878 in Faribault, but who is he?

 Two beautiful Faribault women...who are they?

This home is believed to be in Rice County. Do you recognize it?

Volunteer Spotlight: Carol Ponto

Carol Ponto began volunteering five years ago for the Rice County Historical Society when someone was sought who would be willing to clean the museum. She has been a faithful volunteer ever since, cleaning at not only the society’s museum, but she elps out with periodic house cleaning at the historic 1853 Alexander Faribault House as well.

She began volunteering after she retired because she had the time to give to a good cause, and decided the RCHS was a good organization to help out.

”The museum has always been of interest to me. I volunteer at several other places, too, but enjoy helping out at the museum a lot,” Ponto said.

She helps with schoolchildren tours, too, during the spring field trip season to the museum.

”What I like best about volunteering is meeting children n and adults who visit the museum and its other buildings,” she said. “I always enjoy the people.”

Ponto worked as an educational assistant with the public schools, and prior to that, held several jobs related to automobiles. Her big interest is history, especially reading about British history and watching history programs on television.

Anyone interested in volunteering to help the Rice County Historical Society can call the museum at 507-332-2121.

Collection Care Grant - Phase One: Women's Clothing and Quilts

We've been most fortunate to receive three Minnesota Legacy grants this year.  A Minnesota Bookshelf Grant, funds to help pay for a Historic Structures Grant of the Thorstien Veblen Farmstead, and a Collections Care grant.  I"ll share more information about the first two list at a later time.  For now, however, I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the Collections Care grant work.

This grant, titled Collection Care: Phase 1, is focused on inventorying, photographing, repacking, and storing our quilt and women's clothing collection.  We will then integrate the photographs and location information into our PastPerfect database. This is phase one of a larger collections care project to transfer all collections management data to PastPerfect, photograph and inventory the entire collection, and improve over all collections care at the Rice County Historical Society. The dollars are helping to pay for the boxes, padded hangers, tissue, and a new clothes rack but most importantly, they are helping pay for a Summer Intern, Alicia Reuter, to work on the project. 

Here are some images of the work:

Here you can see the work room where Alicia is bringing the objects from the collections storage space, photographing them, and then rehousing them.















Every artifacts is photographed individually...


...and together (if its an ensemble)...


...then it is carefully packed away...


...labeled with the entire contents and a black and white photo for each item in the box....


...and then the boxes are stored in the attic.

Rice County and the Gunflint Trail

We received a call recently from a researcher who was looking into the history of the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota.  While doing her research she found some curious connections to a Michael Cook who was from Faribault, MN.  She asked if we could provide information on when exactly he lived here, which houses he participated in constructing during that time (her research had uncovered he was a carpenter), and if which, if any, of those houses were still standing.

Needless to say this was a pretty challenging, although not that a-typical. Some information we already knew.  The Faribault GAR post (Grand Army of the Republic, precursor to the American Legion) was the Michael J. Cook Post.  We knew he was a carpenter and had fought during the Civil War, but that he was connected to the Gunflint Trail or Northern Minnesota was news. 

One of the best parts of working here is that when a question comes up that is this surprising and challenging, we all start working to solve this mystery.  Like a finely tuned orchestra we all started to dig in.  Jean to the research files, Pat to the photos, and I went to the Internet.

As is always the case when doing history research, it isn't fair to say this is "new" information.  It is just that is was new to us.  Despite having worked with Rice County for over 20 years, I am the first to admit that the more I know, the more I realize I have to learn.  Such was the case today with this query.

Here are our findings:

• Cook County Minnesota is named for Major Michael J. Cook, a Civil War vet from Faribault, MN.
• The Gunflint Trail is located in Cook County, hence the connection
• Michael Cook was born in New Jersey in 1828, he settled in Faribault in 1855.  Quoting from the book, Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, “…and, being a carpenter, aided in building some of the first framed houses there…”
• He was also a Territorial and State Senator from 1857 to 1862.
• He was mustered into the 10th Minnesota in 1862.
• He was wounded at the battle of Nashville, December 16, 1864 and died 11 days later at the age of 36.

As we said to the researcher, although we can be sure he was here at the time that Faribault became a city (1855) and helped to build many of the first homes, he was not the contractor, architect, or developer so we can not definitively give her a list. 

Yet, how cool is that?   It make me wonder what other connections we can make to place names around the state.