In this week’s update: KCTV coverage, campground fire rings, Lindsborg Business Directory, and more!
In this update, keep up to date on what staff and volunteers at the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum are working on to lift up the history of Lindsborg and the surrounding region. This weekly update both looks back at what happened and looks ahead at what’s coming.
For August 18-24, 2025:
- KCTV 5 television featured Lindsborg – significant portions of which highlighted the museum – in the latest installment of their “Destination Heartland” series last week! At 30 minutes long, it’s a wonderful celebration of our community in the huge Kansas City market! Watch it for yourself!
- The Museum Handy Crew helped place new established fire rings in the Old Mill Campground last week! They also helped with clearing small trees starting to grow in problem locations as well as overall weeding and trimming across the property.
- We are very pleased to announce that in partnership with the Smoky Valley Historical Association, we have been awarded a small Nutt grant to update and reprint the Lindsborg Business Directory! We will need some additional contributions to fully complete the project, but the grant was enough to allow the project to begin and proceed!
- With stability repairs on the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion now complete, we are now in the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion repairs fundraising campaign.
Tax credits are still available for the 2025 tax year for donations under this campaign. Proceeds go to help with a new planned Pavilion roof that will be more durable and with a more historically accurate look! There will also be opportunities to have a “roof tile” with custom wording added to a permanent honor wall to recognize contributions to replace the roof; details will be coming soon.
After processing two contributions last week, the total contributed to the new roof is now nearly $36,000. There is still capacity for almost $52,000 in donations possible under the grant, with eligible donations qualifying for a 70% fully refundable tax credit on Kansas taxes.
Learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof.
- The upcoming workshops from Pursuing YOUR Past – “DNA: There’s No EASY Button…Yet!” – a month away on September 13 – and the next daylong Online Swedish Genealogy Workshop on November 8 are now open and available for registrations! Last week, Adam sent a Constant Contact email to museum members about these educational opportunities.
- Prepurchase is also currently available for the second annual “Magic at the Mill” card tournament held at the museum on Saturday, September 20, in collaboration with local gaming store Spelbok. It will be a prerelease “Spider-Man” set themed tournament for $54.99 or Open Casual Commander for $10. Both registrations come with a guided tour of the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills!
- Adam made contact with a Kansas company that could allow a unique and long-sought-after gift shop product to potentially come to completion! Watch here for more details to come after a product development process.
- Adam processed a renewing museum membership. Get your membership or renew today at www.oldmillmuseum.org/members!
- Adam made updates and corrections to gift shop products in the Square register terminal.
- Adam researched details of the Kansas Museums Conference coming up November 19-21 in Great Bend.
- Adam submitted the final report for the 2024-2025 Arts Commission General Operating Support grant.
- Adam communicated with CVB about a potential museum role for the Starry, Starry Night event -tentatively planned for late October.
- Tyler worked on prepping Chester Bruce history papers to be ready for upload to be accessible to the public in pdf format. Lenora is also working on a detailed index for the collection. We will announce when this collection is available to the public!
- Lenora has continued working on an indexing project under contract with ArkivDigital.
- Need a great gift for the genealogist or history enthusiast in your life? NEW in the museum gift shop, you can now purchase a gift certificate good for a free registration to one of the museum’s Online Swedish Genealogy Workshops anytime in 2025 ($50) or a 2025 Pursuing YOUR Past presentation ($10). Your gift recipient will receive a one-time-use code by email or mail good to pay for the registration fee for one of these popular sessions!
Thank you to our weekly volunteers!
Last week, volunteers included Jerry Sperling, Betty Amos, Mike Lynam, Julie Ann Neywick, Karmon Almquist, Jerry Hammerton, Leland Nelson, and Michael Peterson.