Historical Society begins fundraiser

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

A push for much needed space at the Van Wert County Historical Society campus officially began Friday evening with a Kickoff Gala at the main branch of the Brumback Library.

VWCHS Trustee Mark Hurless is spearhearding the project and a $1.5 million fundraising campaign for a new state-of-the-art 4,900 square foot building at the Historical Society campus. The structure will house, among other things, a new research and genealogy center, along with four additional display rooms.

“The museum is out of space,” Hurless explained. “This will give us the ability to spread displays out, do a better job with some things we think are important like military displays and seasonal displays like the Peony Festival.”

A meeting room will also be part of the new building.

“Right now we meet in our annex and it’s a very small space,” he said. “Technology isn’t happening that building so when we bring in a speaker everything is tight and it’s hard to hear and we have multiple issues with that. We’re excited about that part of it.”

“The thing with research and geneaology – the first you think of is finding your roots – what did great-grandfather do but another big part of that is we have organizations come to us all the time asking ‘do you have any history on the Rotary Club’ or ‘what about Willow Bend,’ he continued. “Typically you have to spend time in a library, you have to spend time on the museum campus to dig all that out. We’re collaborating with the library now and have been for the last year and hopefully we’ll centralize on campus.”

The new building will also house the nationally recognized “Faces of Little Big Horn” collection, which is owned by Brent Stevens. The collection was created by Van Wert native David Humphreys Miller, who spent the 1930s and 1940s traveling across the Great Plains to interview and paint 72 survivors of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

“We had 10 years at the Wassenberg (Art Center) and it was a good run,” Stevens said. “It was decided we’re going to move it someplace else and it just so happened these guys started working on a building for their geneaology department, so it was a happy marriage. The nice thing is I think it will help bring people into Van Wert – I want to keep in Van Wert, this is where it belongs.”

Several pieces of the artwork were on display at Friday’s event.

Hurless noted this is Historical Society’s first fundraising campaign since the early 2000s and he said there are no paid staff members – volunteers are responsible for maintaining the current 2.5 acre campus.

Fundraising efforts are expected to last until late June, 2026 and if all goes as planned, construction of the new building will begin shortly after that. The new structure will face north of the current Welcome Center that faces Third St. and will face west, looking out over the museum campus. The Welcome Center will be torn down.