FEDERATED CO-OPS DONATES TO MILLE LACS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Raquel Paulson (CFO) and Mike McMahon(CEO) were proud to present a donation to Barry Schreiber of the Mille Lacs County Historical Society on behalf of Federated Co-ops and CHS. Barry and the team of volunteers is doing a great job preserving the history of Mille Lacs County. There are many projects that this donation will help support. Below is the press release.

Press Release for Tuesday September 24, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.

Federated Coops Grants $10,000 to Mille Lacs County Historical Society

A $10,000 grant to the Mille Lacs County Historical Society has been announced  by the Federated Coop office in Princeton. Federated CEO Mike McMahon said, “Federated Coops is committed to serving the agricultural, energy and retail needs of our thousands of patrons and customers, and to supporting the building of community in the many central Minnesota cities we serve. We see the Mille Lacs County Historical Society (MLCHS) as doing this well. Our $5,000 grant is being matched  by a $5,000 grant from CHS (Cenex Harvest States) which is a leading agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the United States. 

Barry Schreiber of the Mille Lacs County Historical Society said, “Our local historical society has long been an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to collect, preserve and present topics explaining the history of Mille Lacs County. This generous grant is a transformative one for the MLCHS, and will speed our work on several projects, including:

1) The building of a live telegraph line connection between the office of the majestic 215 foot long brick and stone Princeton Great Northern Railway depot (the home of the MLCHS) and the little wooden Long’s Siding Great Northern depot, which was moved to the south end of our Princeton property in 2016 and is being restored to its 1914 working condition.  Visitors will be invited to try their hand at using Morse Code on the telegraph keys in each depot office, experiencing the “original texting”.

2) The completion of the historic monument work at the site of the “ghost town” of Brickton, 3 1/2 miles north of Princeton on Highway 169. For 40 years, from 1889 until 1929, five brickyards clustered around Brickton made as many as 20 million high quality “Princeton bricks” each summer. No buildings remain at the Brickton site. In fact most of the original building sites in Brickton are now under the northbound and southbound lanes of Highway 169 near the monument. Final work is being planned now for weather proof outdoor photos and signs at the Brickton site, on the east side of Highway 169 across from Patten RV Sales. 

3) The purchase of archival acid free storage boxes, which meet modern museum conservation standards. In the last year, Schreiber reported, “The MLCHS has gone through every item accepted by the Museum in the last 50 years, and has focused its collection on only the items which help explain the history of Mille Lacs County. Just because an item is old does not guarantee we will pledge to take care of it for 200 years if it does not have local provenance and does not help explain Mille Lacs County’s history. These acid free storage boxes are what museums nationally now use to minimize deterioration of documents and photos stored in them.”

Schreiber added, “The primary mission of the Mille Lacs County Historical Society is the collection, preservation and presentation of Mille Lacs County history. A secondary goal is to improve the quality of life and sense of community where we live. 

One way the MLCHS does that is by allowing select nonprofit groups to meet in the recently renovated meeting room in the Princeton depot, now called the Amdall Room. Currently, several nonprofit groups meet there during off-peak room rental times, including the Civic Betterment Club, a group of local musicians, the Master Gardeners, Princeton Community Gardeners,  the ACT on Alzheimers group and the Princeton Grief Support group.”

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For additional information call:

Barry Schreiber at:  763.607.3195