MONDAY MORNING MUSEUM UPDATE – March 9, 2026

In this week’s update: $20K March Millfest Match Challenge, Chester Bruce history papers, Roofing restoration projects, 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 March 2-8, 2026:

• We have made some progress, but still have a distance to go to meet the $20,000 “March Millfest Match Challenge”!
  An anonymous donor has put up $20,000 on the table to encourage sponsorships of our annual Millfest event on May 2. Every sponsorship will be matched dollar for dollar – doubling the value of every sponsorship! With a $100 sponsorship coming in last week, we have 29.3% of the match met, with $5,850 in sponsorships having come in. The deadline for sponsorships has been extended to March 31 to give people the opportunity to take advantage of the Match Challenge. Learn more about how to contribute HERE.
  Millfest is a unique event that is the one time every year that people can take guided tours of the Old Mill in action. The festival also includes, music, entertainment, arts & crafts, antique tractor show, games, demonstrations and face painting!
  Giving levels to sponsor run from as little as $25 to get your name in the program to $5,000 or more to secure topline “Brought to you by…” overall event sponsorship. You can also choose to direct your donation to specific Millfest attractions, including face painting, tractor show, Old Mill tours, or music performances! We are also glad to accept anonymous or non-credited donations. See full details including how to arrange your sponsorship with the forms included below.
  

     

• Last week we announced the addition of 526 historical papers to the Historic Image Database project that were submitted in Chester Bruce’s history classes at Lindsborg High School!
  You can find them all right now at: rebrand.ly/SV-History-Papers
  This is a new, FREE public service that is the perfect tool to help the historian, the family genealogy researcher, or the simply curious. For ease of use, there are two indexes at the top of the folder – one sorting by last name of the author and the other sorting alphabetically by topic.
  We also know that this is an incomplete collection. If YOU have history research papers that you would like to contribute, please contact us at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com or call at 785-227-3595 and we’ll be glad to make arrangements to have those papers scanned and added to the database as well.
  Digitization of these papers was made possible in part with a grant from the Smoky Valley Community Foundation. Thank you!
  
• Last week, we were pleased to see Raber Roofing complete the new roofing repairs to the 1879 Kansas Pacific/Union Pacific Railroad Depot and the c. 1890 Erickson Brothers Workshop, where the Lindsborg brothers developed telephone dial technology. The work was funded funded by a $104,000 grant from the Nutt Legacy fund through the McPherson County Community Foundation. Upcoming to be funded through the grant will also be re-roofing of the Heritage center buildings and Implement building, repairs to the Swedish Pavilion balcony, and repairs to the plaster ceiling inside of the Train Depot. These later aspects to the project need the weather to become warmer and drier to be completed.
  
• “A Day with the Birds” temporary exhibit at the museum will be packed up and retuned to the Kauffman Museum in Newton, Kansas, this week.
  Our thanks for the great opportunity to display this fun, interactive exhibit for the last month!
           
• Adam officially reserved for three upcoming Kansas Folklife presenters through Humanities Kansas, which will be great additions to the museum’s programming lineup. They include:
  -As a Millfest “preview” event, Gene Chávez will present “Flour Power” at 1:30 p.m. on April 25.
  -As part of our Midsummer’s Festival programming lineup, Donna Rae Pearson will present about Juneteenth at both 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on June 20.
  -As an America 250 special event, Priscilla Howe will present “Tell Your Own Story” at 10 a.m. on Friday, July 10.
  We are very excited to have these special presenters come to the museum! Watch for them to be added to our calendars soon.
• Renovation to our museum Gift Shop and Welcome Area is continuing. When completed, this will be a great aesthetic and access improvement for our museum visitors!
  Volunteers with the Museum Handy Crew continued work on the entryway and shelving units on the wall between the gift shop and the main galley, as well as attaching the brochure holder unit to the newly painted shelves and adding a base coat to the next set of shelves set to have traditional hand-painted kurbits designs added.
  With help from funding from the Lindsborg Arts Council, Lindsborg local Carla Wilson has been delivering beautiful results back to us with her work!
  The Arts Council grant has also funded three new art reproductions by Rita Walker on metal backing that feature the Old Mill and Swedish Pavilion that will be going up above the main gallery entryway. They have been received; they just need to be installed!
  For many visitors to Lindsborg, this is their first stop in town and their first experience of the city. These improvements will mean a much better first impression!
  Watch here for updates as the work progresses.
                        
• Last week, Adam officially placed the order for our upcoming release of a pancake and waffle flour mix based on the historical recipe from the last owners of the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills. The initial order to the manufacturer partner of Sunflower Food Co. in Lenexa, Kansas, was for an initial 573-pound run.
  This classic flavor is returning to shelves and restaurants starting on March 21, 2026 – the day of the Lindsborg Vaffeldagen waffle festival! As of posting, the release is less than 12 days away!
  As a sneak preview, be sure to catch Adam as he was invited demonstrate the mix on the KAKE morning show on 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, March 19!
  The recipe is about 80 years old and was believed lost until recently when a notebook found during a home renovation in town was discovered to include the hand-written recipe from the Runbeck Brothers, who owned the Old Mill 1934-1955.
  Also on March 21 as a one-time celebration for the festival, we will be selling fresh-baked waffles made from the new mix for $3 each at the museum!
  Full details are in a news release here: www.oldmillmuseum.org/news/#PancakeMix
  On March 21, the product will be released for purchase from the online Museum gift shop at www.oldmillmuseum.org/gift-shop. and in-person at the museum gift shop at 120 E. Mill St. in Lindsborg. As of this posting, that’s less than 19 days away! (You can see a running countdown HERE.)
  In addition, we now know that the following locations will also we carrying the mix for sale: White’s Foodliner, The Good Merchant, Hemslöjd, Anderson Butik, Rosberg House Bed & Breakfast (as foodservice), Prairieland Market (Salina), The Cook’s Nook (McPherson), Krehbiels Specialty Meats (McPherson), Prairy (Newton), Meridian Grocery (Newton), Encore Antiques and Collectibles (Russell), Wilkens Acres (Abilene), and Swedish American Museum and Historical Society (Swedesburg, Iowa).

  We are very excited to finally be bringing this project to fruition and to bring Kansas (and Iowa!) a delicious taste of the past!

  

  

  The 80-year-old Smoky Valley Best Traditional Pancake Mix is based on Old-World flavor.

• We are participating in the “One Book, One Community” project as a location where a stuffed skunk is “hidden” on display in this Lindsborg reading initiative. In the featured book – “A Boy Called Bat” – the main character and his mother care for an orphaned skunk. During Spring Break the week of March 16, families are encouraged to search for the skunks, take photos, and send their pictures to their school. Our skunk is having a great time learning about the history of flour milling!
  
• Coming up in our genealogy workshops on March 21, we will have our next regularly scheduled Swedish Genealogy Workshop. Members receive a $20 discount. Register today!
• If you think that you (or someone you know) should be the next Executive Director of the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum, applications are now open for the position! Just go to www.oldmillmuseum.org/careers to read the job description and requirements, then send us your cover letter and résumé! If you prefer the Indeed platform, we also now have the position open for applications at the link HERE. We look forward to considering your application! (Adam also successfully posted the job posting to the Small Museums Association website.)
  
• No new or renewing memberships were processed last week. 
  This is not great, as we are currently showing about 85 recent membership supporters who are overdue on renewing.
  Have you renewed your museum membership? (Are you sure?)
  Memberships are a critical source of reliable support for the museum! And we now have an exciting new option – Lifetime Membership!
  Give us a call at 785-227-3595 or email at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com, and we will be glad to check on your status. It’s also a great time to think about becoming a new member if you’ve never been one before, or to purchase a gift membership for someone special in your life! See www.oldmillmuseum.org/members for details!
  
• We are more than 1/3 of the way toward the funds we will need under the “Raise the Roof” campaign to repair the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion’s roof in a more durable and historically accurate way, with $106,431.15 donated to the roof phase of the project. We have applied for a Legacy Nutt grant to try to close the funding gap to finish the project; even so, more will likely be needed to be able to complete this phase 2.
  If you would like to help with Raise the Roof, you can learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof. Contributions made now will not be eligible for the special tax credit opportunity, but may have tax benefits as a qualifying donation to a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization charity. 
  We have several recognition reward levels available: These include recognition on our website and an invitation to a special VIP event once all of the funds needed for the roof (at $100 or more) and opportunities to have a “roof tile” with custom wording added to a permanent honor wall (at $1,000 or more)!
  
  
• We are continuing our critical Harvest of Giving fundraising event into 2026 as our topline goal in $50,000 in unrestricted donations – to keep the museum lights on and the doors open in 2026 – has not yet been met. Currently, this effort is at about $40,000.
  In the space of four years, a major source of public funding has gone from covering half of our annual expenses to less than 8% and is not showing any signs of returning. Because of this, it is more important than ever for generous private donors, businesses, and organizations to step in and ensure that the rare experiences at the Museum continue to be available in 2026. Learn more and make your charitable donation today at www.oldmillmuseum.org/harvest-of-giving.
  
• Volunteers worked on a number of jobs across the museum campus, including trimming down the pampas grass around the flagpole and sorting and inventory of books in the gift shop.
• Lenora met for coffee at Sunflower Terrace on Tuesday and at Friday friendship coffee in these ongoing community outreach opportunities.
• Lenora met with a representative of a group interested in using the Pavilion for a Mid-May meeting.
• Lenora met with a member of the Midsummer’s Festival committee, planning for food truck placement during evening events at Heritage Square on June 20.
• Editing is underway for publishing a museum-created book about local history.
• Adam submitted a $15,000 grant request for museum operational funds.
• Lenora is coordinating for a special visit in April from Dr. Lizette Gradén from Lund, Sweden.
• Museum staff continue to work on Millfest planning, including invitations to Old Mill owner descendants, booking music acts, and securing arts and crafts vendors. Millfest is Saturday, May 2.
• Adam made a number of minor website content updates.
• Adam arranged to meet with a college cinema student this week interested in possibly doing a short film on a museum-related topic.
• Adam processed and mailed two online gift shop orders.
• Tyler worked on scanning printed literature.

Thank you to our weekly volunteers!
This week that included Jerry Hammerton, Karmon Almquist, Leland Nelson, Mike Lynam, Marc Anderson, Mike Koch, Betty Nelson, and Julie Ann Neywick.