Museum 'Season' Winds Down

October 31, 2007 - The baseball season is over, and so too is "history season." After today, the Oswego Historical Museum will no longer be open each afternoon, but the work of the Historical Society will proceed in the background until the annual reopening next April. Genealogical research will continue on behalf of people tracking down their Oswego roots, repairs to the building will move forward, and the museum itself can still be visited by appointment.

In addition, we invite you to tour this Web site from time to time, as we will be actively filling it with documents and virtual artifacts throughout the winter.

The New Barn Arrives

September 28, 2007 - The early settlers would have held a traditional barn raising to erect a new structure of this sort, but in this case, it was more like a "barn lowering." A manufactured utility building in the shape of a traditional wooden barn has been delivered to the site of the historic Smith-Hollingsworth Log Cabin on Third Street, and now sits discretely off to the side of the cabin, near the alley. It was one of the new items acquired by the Historical Society this year, thanks to the generosity of present and former Oswegoans during our special projects fund drive this spring.

As with all museums, the Oswego Historical Museum finds itself too limited in space to keep its entire collection on display at any one time. The new square footage afforded by this barn means that we will eventually be able to relocate our blacksmith shop tools and other agricultural artifacts (now in storage) to this site, where they can be viewed by the public. Watch for further announcements in the coming year.

Hanging Around the Museum

September 17, 2007 - A new wall-mounted display unit has been installed at the edge of the kitchen space. It was another of the items purchased courtesy of the spring fund drive, and replaces an old rolling floor stand that previously displayed large pages of photos and newspaper clippings. The old display system was wearing out rapidly, and also took up scarce floor space. We are just beginning to transfer items to the new display pages, and hope to have much of Oswego's history viewable in them when the Museum re-opens next spring.

Oswego's Contributions to Freedom

August 31, 2007 - The Oswego Museum is grateful for the enthusiastic assistance of John Gurnee in significantly updating our display of military memorabilia. The military section occupies one corner of the museum, and commemorates the service of our town's veterans to this nation from the Civil War to the present day.

Oswego was settled by veterans from both sides of that dreadful conflict, in fact, now some 140 years in the past. In 1866, the same year that Little Town's resettlement got underway in earnest, the Grand Army of the Republic was formed as a national fraternal organization by veterans from the Union side. It became the country's first veterans' organization to wield significant political clout in Washington, fighting for promised pensions and benefits, getting the Old Soldiers' Homes of the 19th century built, and eventually resulting in creation of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The GAR was also responsible for having May 30 designated Decoration Day (now Memorial Day). Oswego's Civil War veterans were eager and active participants in the GAR, and the Oswego Museum has many photos and records of their gatherings.

Later, Oswegoans volunteered and were drafted in great numbers for World Wars I and II. Civilian participation in bond drives and other war activities was also high. The Museum has numerous records and artifacts from these and later conflicts, more of which can be seen readily since Mr. Gurnee's reorganization. We hope you will make it a point to come and see the collection.

Going Postal

August 15, 2007 - With the kind assistance of inmates from the Correctional Camp, a new exhibit has begun to take shape in the Museum's front window at 410 Commercial Street. An old mail sorting table and banks of combination-type post office boxes, previously used in the Oswego Post Office, were donated to the Historical Society some time ago, but remained underutilized and largely in the way where they were previously situated, near the back of the museum.

The accompanying photo depicts the items right after they were placed in the front window, The exhibit has since been updated to include pieces of mail, postal scales, and other items that would have been found in the Post Office here 50 and more years ago. There is also a photograph of the first airmail letter from Oswego being posted. We will add photographs of these at a later time

The U. S. Mail was a key factor in Oswego's growth ever since the town's founding, and the Oswego Historical Society Museum houses a number of documents and other resources detailing that link. We invite you to visit and look up some of that history.

New E-mail and Web Presence

July 30, 2007 - The Oswego Historical Society's new e-mail address became fully operational this Monday morning and work got underway on the Web site you are now reading, prompting Society President Gerald Barnard to observe (only half in jest) that the Museum had "finally entered the Twentieth Century." The change in address was part of the organization's switchover to a high speed Internet connection, prompted by the discontinuance of Oswego's local dialup Internet service.

Faced with news of Oswego.net's impending demise at the end of the July, the Board of Directors voted at their monthly meeting to sign up for Embarq DSL service. In addition to assuring continued e-mail access, the measure makes it possible for the Museum's researchers to access online resources that were previously unavailable, for all practical purposes, with slower connections. The new e-mail address is:

Since Oswego.net shut down so abruptly, and since several days were required to get the new service functional, there was no time to notify most correspondents of the change. Fortunately, Lucas Nodine made the old Oswego.net addresses available to his former customers through their new Internet providers for a small charge. Thus, the Museum can now receive mail via either the new or old address for the next 12 months. We are transitioning to the new Embarqmail address as our correspondents become aware of it, and as new literature is printed reflecting the change of address.

We encourage anyone who corresponds with the Museum via e-mail to add the new address to your contacts list, address book, and/or whitelist, as applicable to your e-mail service. If you copy and paste the address from the above display, please be sure to remove several white spaces that will appear in the copied text.

Museum Gets New Sign

July 26, 2007 - When the Museum's volunteer staff arrived for work this Thursday afternoon, they were surprised and delighted to find workers from Sign Designs in Joplin already putting finishing touches on a new metal sign over the entrance.

Photo Credit -- Rena Russell, The Oswego Independent

The new sign will enable visitors driving up Commercial Street to identify the museum building more readily. It is attractively designed in a style evocative of downtown merchants' signs over a century ago.

Please check back periodically. We will add new stories to this page from time to time.
An archive will also eventually be linked from here, where you will be able to find past news items.