Old photo at Mishicot Historical Museum, August 12, 2024. PC: Fox 11 Online
MISHICOT, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A community-driven history project in a small Manitowoc County village is taking shape.
Volunteers at the Mishicot Historical Museum are working to put some of their local history online.
“I really enjoy the collection that we have here. It’s such a great representation of all the businesses and people here,” said Michael Steeber, Mishicot Historical Museum volunteer.
For the past 34 years, the old one-room school house at 411 Buchanan Street has been home to history in the Village of Mishicot.
“As I started to look through the collection that we have, it’s quite extensive. And the more I look through the collection, the more I realize that the museum actually had,” said Steeber.
Steeber says he knew moving thousands of photographs online could be challenging. He says each item goes through a scanner.
“We’re trying to get the most quality we can out of the image. This particular image is from 1901. And you can see that when you take the time to really make a high-quality digital version, there’s a lot of detail here. It’s really just a stunning image, even all these years later,” he said.
Steeber says artifacts head to a large data base, and then to the world wide web.
“Right now, there are about 3,500 items on the website. We estimate that there are probably three or four times more things that can be added over time. So there’s definitely room to grow,” he said.
Steeber says a $13,000 grant from the West Foundation of Manitowoc helps cover the cost.
“It is a lot of work, But we think that it’s really critical that if we want to have future generations show an interest in local history, and continue to preserve our legacy, that we bring this collection online in a format that’s more visible, and more accessible and more relevant to today,” he said.
The Mishicot Historical Museum project is free for all to use.
Comments