Our own little History's Mystery

I'm working on updating one of our older exhibits-- new labels, new images, new maps. Instead of just rewriting the old labels, I started to do a bit of research and quickly ran into a small mystery. In our exhibit as well as in THE history book for the county, it says that the citizens of the western portion of Milam County distributed and signed a petition to create a new county. The petition was supposed to have been circulated in February 1848. Then, in March 1848 (a mere month later) the Texas legislature voted and passed the creation of Williamson County out of that portion of Milam County.



So, as any good historian would, I wanted to see the original petitions. I went online to the Texas State Library and Archives website to conduct a search for the documents (the petitions and the original Act to create the county). But, I couldn't find anything. Thinking that I had just not figured out the correct grouping of words to find what I was looking for, I sent an email to the reference staff.

Surprise, surprise, I received an email back that they located two petitions, BUT they're not dated 1848...they're dated 1840. Very interesting. Of course, I've asked to have copies of the petitions so that I can see for myself.

This is a very interesting situation and brings up some questions. How could a group of people whose main complaint about the traveling distance through Milam County get two petitions circulated and signed, delivered to the Legislature, and voted on in a month? I just can't imagine that anything in any government could get done that quickly, especially in the 1840s when it took days to travel anywhere on horseback or wagon. How did we get the information wrong (if it is wrong)? And, if someone knew the date was off, why hasn't that information been passed on? Hmmm.

So, I'm waiting for the copies to see what the real story (or rather, date) is.

I'll keep you posted.

Working with Objects

Many people might not realize all the work that goes on behind the scenes in a museum. One of the areas that takes the most time because of the necessary detail that goes into getting it right is working with the objects.

Here's what the main storage area looks like. This is where most of the items (except the larger items like furniture and farm tools, etc.) are housed.



Our museum has only been open for four and a half years and our collection isn't necessarily large, but it's growing day by day. People bring in objects to donate to the museum all the time. And, one of the most important things we do with the collection is cataloguing each object no matter how small. Cataloguing means measuring, describing, photographing, and tagging or physically numbering an item with its own unique number. We do this by hand. Then, all that information has to be added to our collections database, as well as indications of the storage area and shelving unit each item is housed in/on. Here's an example of one item's record in our database.



Our collections intern, Dana, has been working on entering catalogue information into the database and photographing each of the objects in the collection. Luckily, we have a corps of trained volunteers who spend about 4-8 hours every month cataloguing and numbering artifacts-- this helps to cut down on the backlog of artifacts that weren't catalogued as they came in as well as keeping us on schedule with the stuff that still comes in every week. In the first month Dana started, she completed over 115 records-- entering the information into the database and taking photographs. I'm assuming that we've more than doubled that in the past month, since we've also been locating objects already catalogued and entered into the database but for which there is no associated photograph.

There's still a lot to be done, but we're making great progress.

Time for something completely different

It's a first for us. We're trying something new...something exciting...

Background: The last week of July, Mickie's hosting our annual kids' summer history program. This year, it'll be four days. We're calling it Summer History Explorers' Camp. Each day, there will be a new theme/topic with activities, information, lessons, etc.

We were looking for something that would create a tangible outcome to the program. Here's what we came up with.

After every day's theme, the campers will have a chance to look through our photographic collection and write exhibit labels for chosen photographs that relate to the day's topic. Then, on August 16, we'll host an exhibit opening that will display the photographs and labels written by the campers. The exhibit is titled "Picturing the Past." (I'll provide additional information on the photographs if necessary with supplemental labels.)

We're excited by this. It's our first time allowing the public to dictate the story of an exhibit. This "public" will be the campers in the summer program.

I hope you'll join us for the opening-- Saturday, August 16, at 2pm at the Museum.

Rick Trevino!

We're hosting our first concert in conjunction with our Up the Chisholm Trail event. This year, Rick Trevino is going to be the main attraction.

Visit his MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/ricktrevino to hear some music.

Tickets will go on sale soon. Visit www.upthechisholmtrail.org for more information.

Parades are always fun

The Williamson County Sheriffs Posse hosted a parade today to kick off Rodeo festivities. Not quite as big a crowd attended as at the Red Poppy parade in April, but we had fun nonetheless.

Celina, Mickie, Dana, and Chelsea left the Museum in my hands while they rode in Dale's truck. Rebecca and her friend rounded out the float participants. We used the parade as an opportunity to plug Up the Chisholm Trail Cattle Drive and Chuckwagon Cook-off, which we're actively planning. (Two chuckwagons confirmed, four more verbally confirmed.)

At the beginning of the parade, the Sheriffs Posse had a riderless horse. That was in honor of our good friend Coop Smith who passed away earlier this year. It was really a very nice tribute to Coop!

Even though it's our down time, it's hoppin'

Really, we're getting to where this is the quiet time of the year. It's that time between events and exhibits.

We've installed two exhibits this year...and have taken one of them down. Our next exhibit is slated to open in November. I'll be working on making our Swedish Texans exhibit a traveling exhibit (which I've not done before, so it's an all-around learning experience).

We held Pioneer Day, which saw double last year's attendance. We had way more school tours through the museum and courthouse than last year. But, school's over. Mickie's working on Summer History Explorers' Camp. This will be the first year we're expanding that program to a week (well, really, four days). Mickie's going to a storytellers' workshop on Friday.

Celina's catching us up on paperwork. All of the old attendance and volunteer records that were handwritten, she's entering it ALL into our database. Plus, she's going to a training workshop in Waco next week to get a better handle on our membership/contacts database.

I was recently appointed to the Collections Managers Committee (an affinity group of the Texas Association of Museum) as the Newsletter Editor. I sent out my first quarterly newsletter today. I'm also the Secretary for the Austin Museum Partnership. We don't have a lot of meetings for that organization, but we do have networking happy hours, which everyone enjoys. That group will take up more time as Austin Museum Day gets closer.

This is the perfect time for me to have some quiet time to concentrate on the unsexy elements of museum work...working on the collections (Dana's making great progress on the photography project), designing the traveling exhibit, updating the labels in some of the older exhibits, and working with the webmaster to design and get our NEW webpage up and running.

Next month, the intense planning for Up the Chisholm Trail will be in full swing...

A quite June

We just uninstalled the quilt exhibit. It had been up since mid-March and was quite a draw. People loved looking at the quilts that dated from 1871 to 1998. Dana, Chris and I took the quilts down this morning. They're already back in acid-free boxes with tissue paper and on the shelves in the collections area.

What's next? Well. We've received TWO entries for the chuckwagon cook-off. One of the wagons attended our event last year, Goode Ranch Chuckwagon, and were first place winners in the Bread category. We're so excited they'll be joining us again this year. The second wagon is Rodgers Ranch Chuck Wagon from Bertram. I've heard they placed well at the chuckwagon cook-off in Blanco last year (their event was the same day as ours). But, Rodgers Ranch Chuckwagon has decided to join us this year. Ya-hoo!

New elements at this year's Up the Chisholm Trail Event include a consolidated location at San Gabriel Park, Western demonstrators and exhibitors, a trick riding show, a Ranch Rodeo, and a very special live performance after the cattle drive. As soon as we get the details, we'll let y'all know.