In this week’s update: Sunflower Summer – EXTENDED THROUGH FRIDAY, 3,000+ followers on Facebook milestone, Campgrounds reopened, 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 July 28 – August 3, 2025:
- We are very excited that Sunflower Summer 2025 has been EXTENDED through this Friday, August 8!
This state program and app makes more than 230 (!) Kansas attractions and events available for FREE to Kansas school-age kids and one accompanying adult. Originally, the program was slated to end on August 3, but Kansas Commerce announced last week that it has now been extended through August 8!The full list of attractions is now available at www.sunflowersummer.org and – of course – includes the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum! Also in Lindsborg, we have participating: Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Small World Gallery and the Red Barn Studio Museum! (Broadway RFD also participated, but all summer shows have now passed.)
Currently we have had 313 individuals use the program! That’s great, but also notably lower than last year’s more than 550 (largely a result of the shorter timeframe this year). We would love to have as close to a similar number as 2024 as possible, especially with the extra week we have for people to attend!We encourage everyone with school age kids in Kansas to take advantage of this wonderful program!
- Our thanks to everyone who helped us pass an awesome milestone last week on Facebook of more than 3,000 followers! We currently have 3,081 after a great push of new followers into last weekend. It’s not too soon to start working on 4,000! Please be sure to “Like” our page if you haven’t already and share the profile with your friends and encourage them to follow. It’s a wonderful way to stay informed on all the latest from the museum and to help spread the word about all the good that’s happening here!
- The campgrounds have been reopened to new campers again after flooding off the Smoky Hill River receded last week! (Below video reflects the current lower levels of theriver.)
- The upcoming workshops from Pursuing YOUR Past – “DNA: There’s No EASY Button…Yet!” – on September 13 and the next daylong Online Swedish Genealogy Workshop on November 8 are now open and available for registrations!
- 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!
- 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.
The total contributed to the new roof is now more than $35,000. There is still capacity for more than $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 cleaning crew is expected to finish its work inside the Swedish Pavilion this week. When it is complete we can do a “soft reopening” of the inside of the Pavilion to the public again!
- Adam officially accepted the Kansas Arts Commission General Operating Support grant for $14,456 for 2025-2026.
- A few housekeeping notes: A plumbing issue in the women’s restroom in the main museum building was fixed last Friday. Also, the museum has contracted to spray weeds in several key areas on the museum campus, which should be finished later this week early next.
- Lenora worked with an area contractor to help prioritize priority projects for a grant due later this fall.
- Lenora worked on processing a donation of artifacts from a local resident.
- Our thanks to the Handy Crew, which last week cleaned up from storm damage and returned campground picnic tables to their correct location. They also worked on repairs to the gazebo on the front lawn.
- Adam updated some pricing in the online gift shop and in-person.
- Adam made sure the many additional families of guests coming with Sunflower Summer had copies of guest maps, scavenger hunts, and coloring pages.
- Adam finished a draft of a letter to be mailed for the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion campaign. He will complete the giving form for this phase of the campaign and create the full mailing list this week.
- Tyler continued working on the Historic Image Database on Tuesday and Thursday, currently working on several binders of photos on loan from Covenant Church. Lenora also met about scanning photos from the Bethany Church archives.
- 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, our volunteers included Tim Stewart, Betty Amos, Cathy Ahlstedt, Julie Ann Neywick, Jerry Hammerton, Karmon Almquist, Leland Nelson, and Michael Peterson.