{"id":195220,"date":"2025-07-25T20:56:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T01:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=195220"},"modified":"2025-07-27T20:40:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T01:40:23","slug":"local-historical-society-kicks-off-fundraising-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/07\/25\/local-historical-society-kicks-off-fundraising-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Society begins fundraiser"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Van Wert County Historical Society trustee Mark Hurless stands with a rendition of the planned new addition to the museum campus. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe museum is out of space,\u201d Hurless explained. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A meeting room will also be part of the new building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now we meet in our annex and it\u2019s a very small space,\u201d he said. \u201cTechnology isn\u2019t happening that building so when we bring in a speaker everything is tight and it\u2019s hard to hear and we have multiple issues with that. We\u2019re excited about that part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe thing with research and geneaology \u2013 the first you think of is finding your roots \u2013 what did great-grandfather do but another big part of that is we have organizations come to us all the time asking \u2018do you have any history on the Rotary Club\u2019 or \u2018what about Willow Bend,\u2019 he continued. \u201cTypically you have to spend time in a library, you have to spend time on the museum campus to dig all that out. We\u2019re collaborating with the library now and have been for the last year and hopefully we\u2019ll centralize on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new building will also house the nationally recognized \u201cFaces of Little Big Horn\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had 10 years at the Wassenberg (Art Center) and it was a good run,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cIt was decided we\u2019re 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 \u2013 I want to keep in Van Wert, this is where it belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several pieces of the artwork were on display at Friday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hurless noted this is Historical Society\u2019s first fundraising campaign since the early 2000s and he said there are no paid staff members \u2013 volunteers are responsible for maintaining the current 2.5 acre campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

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These two pieces of the Little Big Horn Collection, along with others, were on display Friday evening. Scott Truxell photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 09:16:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195247,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195220\/revisions\/195247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}