Progress Notes

By far the most exciting event in recent days is the way in which friends of the Miller County Historical Society have responded to our building fund campaign for the new addition to the present building. One visual indicator is to compare the fund barometer sign standing outside the museum today with a photograph of the same sign two weeks ago. I have attached to this report a photo of both signs. It's really fantastic but as one can see by comparing the two signs, we have accumulated thirty thousand dollars in donations over the last two weeks. This was a result of fifteen thousand dollars given by individual donations and fifteen thousand dollars matched by an anonymous donor. And that sum added to the amount with which we started means we have eighty thousand dollars accumulated in the building fund account. What is more exciting is that if we can bring in thirty five thousand more dollars, which will be matched by an anonymous donor, we will reach our goal of one hundred fifty thousand dollars to finance our new building. So to everyone I say congratulations for your generosity and your hard work to help us go a long way in a short time toward the goal of building our new museum addition.

04-22-2007

04-29-2007

Work continues on the new addition. The footings were poured early in the week by the concrete company owned by Bennett Helton and Ron Clement. Layne Helton (see photo) did a good job of bringing in gravel from Dog Creek to spread around helping alleviate the mud problem, and Paul Holder and crew began cutting doorways through the rock wall.

Layn Helton on loader

The construction has caused us to lose our basement entrance temporarily; however, due to concern that we didn't have a legal handicap ramp exit in place at the entrance we decided to eliminate the bean supper part of the Open House scheduled for this coming Saturday April 28 and instead serve cookies and punch on the porch. But everyone come Saturday because the Open House is the official opening event of the museum for this season.

Monday, Judy and I had the pleasure of hosting lunch at our house for the Fogleman sisters: Lillian, Pauline, and Ruby. They were raised near Tuscumbia and have always been very interested in topics and happenings having to do with Miller County History. They brought me a huge volume of historical documents and papers as well as photos for us to place on our web site in the future. Their grandfather John Fogleman, who had a livery stable in Tuscumbia in the late 1800's, was married to Augusta Hauenstein, daughter of William Hauenstein, the originator of Anchor Mill Company. I have attached photos of John Fogleman and Augusta (Hauenstein) Fogleman. Their sister, Helen (Fogleman) Lawson lived her entire life in Tuscumbia and was well known here having passed away several years ago. Marcia (Lawson) Dinkins, their grand niece, was kind enough to chauffer them around this week.

John Wilson Fogleman

Augusta (Hauenstein) Fogleman

Sharon Cogdill and I spent last Saturday at the Columbia College open house with a display informing about the museum and our building program. Many people visited with us as well as bought raffle tickets for the beautiful infant quilt made by Sharon Holder and the equally beautiful king size maple leaf pattern quilt made by Elva Steen.

Finally, we are really enthusiastic about the favorable response our new website is evoking in those who are taking a look at it. According to Wayne Johnson, our web consultant, for a site with this short time frame of exposure, the number of people taking a look at it is very high. I think most of this good response is due to word of mouth advertising by those who have reviewed the site and discovered how easy it is to navigate and especially how interesting are the topics covered about Miller County and its history. Always take a look at the "What's New" section under the "About Us" heading at the top left of the page to see what has been added if you are a return visitor.

Joe Pryor