The McLeod County Historical Society was first organized in 1940 as a collection of local groups interested in community and county history. It was then re-organized in 1952 into the unified county-wide organization that it is today. Over the years the museum has made its home in a Hutchinson schoolhouse, a former residence, a small rural schoolhouse, and since 1988, its present location on Highway 7 and School Road in Hutchinson, MN.
The McLeod County Historical Society fills a vital role in preserving McLeod County History and educating residents, students in our schools, and the public about our past so we can learn and inspire the future residents of the County. Individuals, organizations, and businesses from throughout the United States rely on the society’s resources for help in researching the history of its people, families, and institutions. Thousands of local and out of town guests visit our exhibits and attend our many programs that are held at the museum each year. And with in the last two years our on-line guests have grown to record numbers, making our website a huge challenge, in its current state, but also a huge opportunity that could transform how we fulfill our mission and raise funds to do it.
Our Mission
Our Mission: “The McLeod County Historical Society is dedicated to connecting with the past, understanding the present, and making informed choices about the future by finding, preserving, explaining and sharing McLeod County history.â€
Our Mission is based on preservation of the past as it relates to the people, places, and events in McLeod County, discovering and sharing that history through displays, research projects and history publications and in the future via the internet and our new website. The final goal of our mission is to use our history to choose the best path for our future and the future of the County.
The McLeod County Historical Society fills a vital role in preserving McLeod County History and educating residents, students in our schools, and other interested parties. Individuals, organizations, and businesses from throughout the United States rely on the society’s resources for help in researching the history of people, families, communities, and institutions. Thousands of local and visiting guests visit our exhibits and attend our many programs that are held at the museum each year.
Why We Need a New Website
The board of directors has now turned its focus on ways to better serve the citizens of McLeod County. The Museum has invested a large amount of time and money into converting their collections data from a paper based index to computer based. Using the small Museum searchable database program Past Perfect, the Museum is now able to do key word searches of a vast majority of our collections, that when used by guests can access historical, donor, photographic, video, and audio information related to each artifact. This advancement has lead to more guest traffic to the museum, both physically and electronically. This increase has lead the board to explore how the Museum can reach a larger portion of the public and keep up with their demands for new ways to access Museum information via the internet and our in-house server network system and Past Perfect inventory software program.
Over the past six years the museum has seen continued growth in local and nationwide memberships, program attendance, on and off site use of our library, microfilm, and archive information, and research requests via the internet. With this increase in guest needs, the board realizes that our current server network, workstations, software, and website capabilities fall short of the ever increasing demands of the public. By meeting the technology needs of the public and offering an upgraded website and technologically current software and hardware system, the Museum can fulfill its mission of connecting with the past, understanding the present and making informed choices about the future by preserving, explaining, and sharing McLeod County History with the public we serve.
How Our New Site Will Help Make the World Greener
As of right now all our research requests are e-mailed to us through our website, which is very green, but because of our limited site cababilities, we can not be green back. We have to print out information from our database, or make photo copies and mail the information out. Our gift shop at the Museum offers many historical publications that could be offered digitally on-line in a downloadable version, eliminating the waste of paper, conserving energy with less use of inhouse printers, and ink. Our Museum is in a rural part of Minnesota, hours outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, the nearest metro area. This means that most or our public has to drive a large distance to see our exhibits or do research in our library. If the public could access virtual displays of our collections and search our database for information via our website, a tremendous amount of time and fuel would be saved each year. This would especially be benificial to schools who have to bus large numbers of students to school tours each year.
When the judges choose which non-profits will be selected to participate in this year's Challenge they will take into account testimonials from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, board members and other
The McLeod County Museum has wanted to do a makeover of its website for years but has never had any extra funds to make it happen. The past few years we have had a huge increase in volunteers, who have organized our library and entered items and pictures on our database. It would be wonderful to make all this important information available via a website. It would be a huge reward to all the volunteers who have given thousands of hours to make all this information available to people near and far. Thank you for your time and consideration.
volunteer
I have been a volunteer at the McLeod County Museum for just a few years. During that time I have found the museum to be a place with so many artifacts and history relating to the county which has limited access by spening time at the museum. Having a website with access to all this information and photos of the artifacts would be a wonderful asset. There are so many artifacts that only a very small portion can be displayed at any given time. The website would be a way to display many more of these artifacts and their history. The website will help us promote the museums ability to preserve the history of the county and make it available to considerably more age and educational groups. Your consideration of our museum for a new website would be greatly appreciated.
volunteer
I have been the volunteer network administrator since 2007. I have seen our artifacts and history data base grow over the last two years. In fact, we are replacing our existing server to gain more hard drive disk space. We need a website to make these items available to the public so that our work is not for naught. I have been in the IT industry for 40 years but I am lacking the initial website design skills. If we can get a basic website going with all the building blocks, I am positive we can maintain it in the future. Thanks for your time and consideration.
Stan Ehrke, President, McLeod County Historical Museum
This organization is a gem! I never realized what a gift the museum is until I became a member. The rich history of our county needs to be preserved. We need to use all available technology to do this. Please consider the McLeod County Museum for your project. Thank you.
Lora Elwell
Member
Anonymous
As the arts and entertainment writer for the Hutchinson Leader, I'm always on the look out for a good story. Amazingly enough, there's so much going on at the McLeod County Museum that I could run a story at least a couple times a month if not more. How cool is that? We're not a "big city" museum, but we have a first-class director and a dedicated volunteer staff that make it an exceptional place. Director Lori Pikell-Stangel has managed to continue to do more with less. It is my hope that you will consider the McLeod County Museum for your project.
Kay Johnson Arts & Entertainment Hutchinson Leader
I am a member and regular reader of the museum's newsletters. I am also an occasional user of the museum's collection. I say occasional because I live 700 miles away and can get to Hutchinson only occasionally. I would like to be able to have access to the collections more often than the few times I am able to visit in person. The new web site, I hope, will be a step in that direction. I support their efforts at modernizing access to their information.
Neal Laurance, McLeod county native, and now Michigan resident.
Anonymous
My wife and I are members of the McLeod County Museum and Historical Society. We are very proud to be involved with the organization and appreciate the work that is accomplished to keep the history of McLeod County available for all to see and make use of the fine facility, not only for the present, but for the future. It is good to know that our history will be there for future generations to study and know what we were all about here in McLeod County. We have a dedicated volunteer staff and a great director. They all deserve the ability to have a first class web-site to provide all members and others who want to know what is taking place with the Historical Society. We hope you will give them the consideration they deserve.
Roger Krantz, Member and volunteer.
The McLeod County Historical Society is a one -of -a -kind group of volunteers. I have served on the Board, and am a Life-time member of this Society. The transition from hard copy monthly newsletters, to the on-line newsletter has been a move to a greener method of message sending. The group has worked very hard, coming from a financially challenged organization five to seven years ago, to a sound not for profit organization-considering our current economic situation. Any help the Society can recieve is well deserved and will be utilized to the max to serve it's members and our community. The Museum has never looked better, and the creative efforts the Board of Directors put forth to serve all of it's constiuents are just amazing. Thanking you in advance for your consideration to our Historical Society, I Respectfully Submit,
Kay Husfeldt Member and Volunteer
Our family has been involved with the McLeod county Historical Society and the museum for many years. It is a county TREASURE!! The board has struggled through and survived some very tough econmic pressures. Now with our very capable director and the many, many volunteers working hard the museum needs to move forward. A huge part of this is an up to date website. One which would allow the public to easily access our data base for information and research. Please consider our museum when choosing your award. Thank you.
volunteer and lifetime member
The McLeod County Historical Museum is the repository of many important documents, photographs, books and artifacts. This includes information about the founding family of Hutchinson, the Hutchinson Brothers. This group of brothers had great influence in McLeod County, the State of Minnesota, the United States and in Europe in the 1800"s. Your award will help those in the county, the state, the country and in the world have greater access to the historical treasures found in the museum. I personally use the museum to research my role as a historical reenactor at Murphyt's Landing heritage park in Shakopee. Enhancing the museum's website will help me do my research. Thanks.
Larry Macht
Larry Macht/member and donor and history enthusiast
I am a relative new member of the McLeod County Historical Society. I have really enjoyed the many programs that they provide. I am also doing research for books that I am writing through Heritage Maker on my family. Other family members love the one I have done on my Great Grandparents and are looking forward to seeing more. I think this web site would be a real help to me and to many others.
Unanimous
Anonymous
The McLeod County Historical Society Museum is an incredible organization and resource center. It has a volunteer organization and staff leadership second to none. Its activity calendar is amazing. I believe it would clearly use a new website with enhanced technology to maximum advantage in presenting its services to its constituency.
George Bonniwell, Lifetime Member
As a lifetime member of the McLeod County Historical Society Museum I have used the resource center repeatedly and watched it become more organized and community friendly. It provides a place to research the history of the County and the families that settled here. History that is taught in the surrounding schools no long emphasizes nor dwells on teaching children what part McLeod County played in the history of Minnesota. I believe that everything possible should be done to help preserve history and carry it's lessons forward. Improving and/or reconstructing the current website would only help to do that and draw more interest to the Museum which in turn will continue to make the Museum more viable.
Lifetime Member
The McLeod County Historical Society has a library that has a tremendous amount of information organized and accumulated by a dedicated group of volunteers. A revised website would enable the Society to let more people know about the significant amount of research inromation available, both genealogical and historical.
Gerard Stifter, Board member
Anonymous
My view is 'an outside view.' I have not lived in McLeod County for forty years but made a decision to become a Lifetime Member because of the need for the museum along with its successful development. The development and growth of the McLeod County Historical Society and Museum has been nothing short of remarkable. This growth has been due to:
1. a grass-roots effort by volunteer county residents from the very start. The origin and development through total volunteer efforts was unique and highly successful.
2. The wisdom of the board which recognized that the Society and Museum could not continue growth without the leadership provided by hiring a professional director. In some non-profits, this transition from total volunteer leadership to professional leadership often results in power struggles between the volunteers who don't want to give up power and the new director. Such struggles often result in the demise of the organization. That power struggle never occurred in McLeod County Historical Society and Museum because of:
(a) volunteers who recognized the need to respect the professional position and
(b) the director who brought in the skills for museum development which included a high level of working positively with volunteers, the Board, as well as a host of community, regional and state partners.
The McLeod County Historical Society and Museum is a rare success story in the development of county museums, thanks to the early leadership of volunteers and, then, the partnership of a paid director and the continuing army of volunteers.
Dr. Darrol Bussler, Professor Emeritus
Minnesota State University
Home: Waconia, Minnesota
Anonymous
The McLeod County Historical Museum would not exist if it were not for it's dedicated Volunteers. Five years ago the facility and the Museum itself came very close to ending because of a lack of financial resources. The board of directors had decided to lock up, when a devoted group of volunteers stepped forward and kept the business of preserving McLeod County History going! Now after almost eight years the Museum is on sold financial footing, but they have a new challenge. The way the public, the Museum serves, uses information has changed. The Museum used to see most of its visitors and research requests via person to person, through phone calls or letters. Now in 2010, this means of communication is no longer acceptable or efficient. If the Museum's website does not improve and start keeping up with the demands of the public, The Museum again will be faced with extinction. If you do not exisit on line, to many, you do not exist at all. Right now, the Museum has a tremenous amount of historical, cultural, and visual information to contribute and share with the public, but without an updated website inwhich to disseminate it, it becomes a hidden treasure only avaiable to a small few. Please, help us to Preserve the Past and Inspire the Future, by creating a website that will bring us up to date and take us into the future.
Thank you!
