Museum Closed Today 4-11

Due to the winter storm and poor road conditions, the Pope County Museum will be closed today, Thursday, April 11. We plan to be open again tomorrow for regular hours 10-5:00.

See you at the Expo!

Saturday is the 3rd Annual Pope County Community Expo. Stop by and see us at our booth in the main gym from 9:00 to 3:00 at Minnewaska Area High School. We will have a traveling version of our Veterans’ Wall of Honor available for viewing – and a few other surprises. Hope to see you there!

The museum will also be open on Saturday 10-5:00.

P is also for “Postcards”

The Lakeside Ballroom was featured on the Pioneer Public Television series “Postcards” this week. You can catch it this Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. or online at pioneer.org. (Click the link to see the video.) The episode features many images from the Pope County Historical Society collection and extensive commentary by our own Merlin Peterson.

The program highlights the history of the building and features a segment about the active Ballroom Dance Club that meets at the Ballroom.

Postcards Episode: Historic Minnesota Ballrooms

“Ballrooms have a fabulous musical history starting with the Big Bands of the 30s and 40s to the famous artists of the 50s through 90s; the ballrooms in western Minnesota had them all. Hear stories of those who attended the Fiesta Ballroom in Montevideo, and those who attend a surviving ballroom, the Lakeside, in Glenwood.”

P is for Portraits

Pope County Museum A-Z is a continuing feature of our blog. Periodically, I will highlight an item or items from our Museum collection.

Martin and Kathryn Bartos

In our museum, we have a long wall of pioneer portraits. Visitors often linger by the images as if wondering about these people from long ago. One of the most frequent questions I receive about them is: “Why didn’t they ever smile in the pictures?”

There are several theories about the lack of smiling faces. One is that long exposure times required the subject to sit very still and it is easier to hold a serious expression than a smile. The lack of dental care is another theory. After all, who wants a permanent record of themselves showing bad teeth?

John C. and Lovissa Peterson

But the most likely reason is simply that NOBODY smiled in portraits. Painted portraits of the time didn’t feature smiling faces either. Nowadays, we try to capture those fleeting moments, the true smiles. Smiling in photographs would most likely have been perceived as a fake smile and it was better to use the rare, serious, special occasions of getting photographed to present yourself as serious.

The pictures in our gallery are also interesting because of their technique.

Eliza (Bevier) Pennie

Images like this are produced from small early photographs such as daguerreotypes, tintypes and ambrotypes that were placed in a Woodward Solar Enlarger. The enlarger produced a weak photographic print on a large sheet (usually 20 x 16) of heavy paper, which was then sketched over by an artist. Most were done in with black Conte crayons made of powdered graphite or charcoal mix with a clay or wax base. Sometimes color pastels were also used.

The Crayon Portraits (as they are known) were popular from 1860 to about 1905. But, the original image used in the enlarging process may have been taken much earlier, so it is difficult to determine life dates based on crayon portraits.

Margaret (Taylor) Cooley

Museum Closed Today

Due to icy roads, the Pope County Museum will be CLOSED today (3/15/13).

O is for Optomitrist’s Tools

Pope County Museum A-Z is a continuing feature of our blog. Periodically, I will highlight an item or items from our Museum collection.

Optometry Trial Lens Set

Today’s object is an optometry trial lens set. These sets first became available in 1843. They gave optometrists a way to create an individual prescription for each patient.  The lenses are inserted into special glasses worn by the patient. The lenses can be switched until the very best lens is chosen for each eye.

We have several sets in our collection, one of which belonged to Dr. Burt A. McIver of Lowry.

Optometry Kit

New students of optometry still purchase similar trial lens sets when they begin their studies.

N is for Note – Banknote that is

Pope County Museum A-Z is a continuing feature of our blog. Periodically, I will highlight an item or items from our Museum collection.

First National Bank of Glenwood Banknote

An article in the October 21, 1904 edition of the Glenwood Herald announced that a charter had been granted to for a National Bank in Glenwood. The principal shareholders of the new First National Bank of Glenwood were P. Peterson, Alba Webster and W.F. Dougherty (Formerly of the Bank of Glenwood). The were aided by two gentlemen from Sauk Centre.

Banknote – back

“Capital stock of the new institution is $25,000, secured by bonds deposited in the U.S.Treasury, who in return will issue National Bank Currency for the greater part of the amount.

First National Bank Building in 1912

It will be quite a novelty to citizens of this village and vicinity to have the pleasure of receiving bank notes bearing the name of Glenwood upon them.”

We have a $10 banknote in our collection from the First National Bank of Glenwood.

The bank closed and was re-organized in 1924, then a run on the bank forced it to close its doors in June of 1926, by August it was in liquidation proceedings. It was one of many banks that failed in the 1920s. On average 600 banks closed each year from 1921-1929.

First National Bank Building in 2012

The bank was located on the Northwest corner of Minnesota Avenue and Franklin Street. The building still stands and today is home to the Dough-Nuts Bakery.