In this week’s update: Midsummer’s Festival, New exhibit displays, “Raise the Roof” of the Pavilion, 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 June 2-8, 2025:
- Midsummer’s Festival is THIS Saturday, June 14! At the museum, we are the host location for the 13th annual Midsummer’s Festival Kubb Tournament (registration at 11, play starts at 12, Championship round at approximately 5:15 and will be livestreamed) on Heritage Square, as well as a full schedule of evening entertainment and activities on the square, including:
-4 p.m. – Front Porch Pickers
-4:30 p.m. – Broadway RFD and Kids Summer Production
-5 p.m. – Scandinavian Folk Dancers of Kansas City
-5:45 p.m. – Lindsborg Arts Council Jazz Band
-7 p.m. – National Anthems & Kansas State Song
-7:20 p.m. – Raising Midsummer Pole (Najstångsresning)
-7:30 p.m. – Swedish Folk Dancing (Performances & Audience Participation)
All events on Heritage Square are free (donations encouraged) and we are running an admission special of just $5 per person (Ages 0-5 free as always) to visit the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills and our newly renovated main museum galleries on the south side of Mill Street.
Hope to see you there!
- Thanks to funding from the Kansas Department of Commerce SPRINT Grant, Display Studios of Kansas City completed their portion of new exhibit displays in the museum back gallery. All that remains for the renovation to be complete is museum staff placing relevant artifacts into the newly renovated display cabinets. We’re so pleased to have this exciting new historical content!
- Perfect Blend Construction is down to just finishing touches on the stability repairs work on the south side of the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion!
We are now working on arranging a deep cleaning of the interior for a suitable reopening to the public.
Thanks to everyone who donated to help us reach the $151,500 needed for these critical repairs! More tax credits are now available for the 2025 tax year, with proceeds now going to help with a new planned Pavilion roof that will be more durable and with a more historically accurate look in the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion campaign! Learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof.
- Last Saturday, we had 35 registrants at our virtual Swedish Genealogy Workshop with four great sessions, including the return of Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective!
- Aubrey presented a budget allocation request at last week’s (Monday, June 2) Lindsborg City Council meeting on Monday, June 2. You can watch her presentation HERE. Adam helped with preparation.
- On June 12 this week at the museum, Lenora will give a short presentation on the Historical Speaker Series and Svensk Hyllningsfest projects – both funded by Humanities Kansas – to the Humanities Kansas Board meeting.
- Lenora is working on a presentation about Svensk Hyllningsfest for the Swedish coffee group. It will be the morning of Friday, June 27 and is open to the public!
- Adam processed one new museum membership and added a name to a family membership that had been previously omitted.
- Aubrey continued to work on the museum mini-exhibit about ice-age fossils.
- Aubrey sent the a letter of intent for a grant application to the Greenway Foundation.
- Aubrey re-ordered low or out of stock gift shop items.
- We had a featured “timestamp” about Millfest at the beginning of the national NPR Politics podcast last week.
- Adam made updates to the website events page and to the Pavilion fundraising page.
- Adam gave recommendations for edits on an upcoming episode of the “Preservation Oaks” podcast talking about the museum and related promos.
- Adam had a demo call Tuesday with a possible donor management platform.
- Adam posted unsold silent auction items from Millfest to area Buy/Sell/Trade groups on Facebook.
- Museum staff had a great opportunity to meet with Don Dunlap and his daughter, Paige, as they were making their way to vacation in Colorado. They are both direct descendants of Theo Teichgraeber, who was the mill owner when the mill was built in 1898! Wonderful to have you visit!
- Tyler continued working on the Historic Image Database.
- Lenora completed and sent off a research request last Thursday. She also fulfilled two smaller requests during the week.
- Lenora met for coffee at Sunflower Terrace on both Tuesdays to gather local oral history.
- 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, Leland Nelson, Karmon Almquist, Mike Koch, Jerry Hammerton, Cathy Ahlstedt, Ava Toll and Julie Ann Neywick.