El Quartelejo Museum and Jerry Thomas Gallery and Collection - El Quartelejo Museum and Jerry Thomas Gallery and Collection
Scott County Historical Society
Fall 2011 Newsletter
November! I can’t decide whether to start with events just past, or to press on to those special events still to come. Either way, it seems incredible that this year is already drawing to a close.
SUMMER VISITATION: Perhaps this is a good place to begin. In spite of high gas prices and a noticeable decrease in highway travelers, we had a good summer. Two major Saturday events boosted our summer count considerably, with Bike Across Kansas in June (126 visitors) and the All America City Celebration Day in August (100). The Bike Across Kansas folks love coming to Scott City, and were grateful to find iced tea and cookies waiting for them here at the museum. They all rode away wearing our new Museum/Thomas Gallery buttons.
MEMBERSHIP APPRECIATION DAY: A good crowd showed up for Membership Appreciation Day on October 2nd and enjoyed the program, which was brought by the two authors of a new book about the Northern Cheyenne saga. Since part of that story includes the battle between the U.S. Cavalry and Native Americans right here in Scott County, we are always intrigued by new historical information. James Leiker and Ramon Powers signed copies of their book, The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory. More than twenty people also took the historic bus tour to Battle Canyon before the meeting. Currently we have around 250 members. Membership dues are only $10 per year, per member, and we encourage you to invite your friends and family to join us at any time.
SCOTT COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL DISPLAY: The Scott County Arts Council has once again asked to use the temporary gallery to display local arts and crafts as a part of the Merchant’s Open House, on Sunday, November 13th from 1-5 p.m. The museum and Thomas galleries and our gift shop will be open as well. The Arts Council will be serving cookies. We have so many talented folks in this community and this is always an interesting display so make this one of your stops that day. This display will only be up about a week, as we will need the exhibit space for our own holiday displays.
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE: Our own Holiday Open House and Sugar Plum Sale will be Sunday, December 4th, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Our holiday theme will be “A Victorian Christmas” showcasing the beautiful, fully-furnished Victorian dollhouse recently given to the museum by Barbara and Gilbert Knipp. The exhibit in the temporary gallery will feature DOLLS and we need your help. If you have a treasured doll you’d like to display we will welcome her (him? them?) to share the spotlight through the holidays. We need those dolls soon, so please bring them out before November 23rd, when we will be putting that display together. It has been some time since we displayed dolls, and it was one of our more popular holiday exhibits. And we also need COOKIES & CANDIES for the Sugar Plum Sale. If you can provide some goodies please let us know. 872-5912
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IDEAS: We have added a new supply of interesting and unique items to the gift shop for this holiday season. We have a large number of children’s books, toys and games, including lots of popular dinosaur items. How about a kit to excavate a small fossil, or a dinosaur egg? Do you have a budding geologist in your family? We have rocks and minerals. We have a sampling of Kansas products, from soap to nuts – have you ever microwaved popcorn on the cob? Some of our gift items will make great stocking stuffers. And of course we always stock the popular horsehair pottery items, historical novels and other books of historical interest, unique lariat art, Scott County historical playing cards, the Scott County DVD and other Scott County items, and a full range of Jerry Thomas prints.
Summer 2011 Newsletter
Okay – so it’s been awhile since the last newsletter - like – before Christmas?! Will it make you feel any better through this heat wave, to remember the bitter cold winds of winter? Probably not. Apologies for the long silence. We’re always busy and there are always projects in the works, some of which we’ll highlight in this newsletter.
SUMMER HOURS: We extended weekend hours for the summer and hired Marilyn Kendrick to work part time. Darlene Arnold has also been hired as custodian. Volunteers have been filling the extra weekend hours as well, and how we appreciate YOU! We still have part of July and all of August weekends to fill – can you help now and then? Call the office 872-5912.
TEMPORARY GALLERY EXHIBITS: Some of you may not know that this is the 80th anniversary of the Scott County Historical Society. The temporary gallery is currently displaying some of the historical happenings from those 80 years. If you haven’t seen that display yet, you need to get out soon, as we’ll be changing that display in a couple of weeks.
The next exhibit is going to be fun to put together and fun to see. An article in Popular Mechanics listed 101 gadgets that “changed the world” – and we’re going to gather up as many of those as we can for the display. We have many of them in the museum collection, but do you have: an electric toothbrush, a stopwatch, an old mobile phone ( bag phone or earlier), a Sony Walkman, an old fire extinguisher, a bonnet hairdryer, a lunchbox (possibly early Disney character type), a Coleman lantern, an 8-track player? Perhaps you have other interesting gadgets that might not be on the list – bring them out and we’ll see if we can use them. Items will be in the display for about three months.
Read more: Summer 2011 Newsletter