The Pulaski County Historical Society has announced the grand opening for its new county history museum in downtown Winamac will be Thursday evening, July 10.
The event will include a ribbon-cutting conducted by the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce at the museum, located at 110 N. Monticello St. The public is welcome.
The new museum was built in partnership with FBI Buildings, TM Construction, and First National Bank of Monterey.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time for light refreshments at the July 10 event. A very brief Historical Society meeting will follow at 6 p.m. to elect officers and board members. A 15-minute summary of the project will be followed by the ribbon cutting at 6:30 p.m. Guests will then be welcomed to the museum.
“We have many people to thank for guiding us on this journey,” said Historical Society vice president Kathi Thompson. “We would not be here without the financial support from our members and sponsors, and to those who gave so generously to our fundraising efforts to secure a wheelchair lift and to purchase furniture and equipment. Those donors are honored on permanent plaques that will forever be displayed in the museum.”
She added the organization will announce a new addition to the property – which will remain unnamed now, but will be revealed at the meeting, with a great thank you to donors.
“We are excited to be moving the museum downtown,” said Historical Society president Ryan Harrison. “We will be able to participate in downtown events, like Winter Wonderland, the annual town-wide garage sales, the annual car show and more.”
The new building will significantly increase the museum display space (by six to seven times). The museum will have appropriate climate-controlled artifact storage, and the Historical Society will have the ability to provide educational programming. Community organizations will be invited to use a designated new “Cultural Center” space for meetings and events as well. A galley kitchen will be available, and a mezzanine area will provide space for volunteer museum staff to work on projects.
For the museum opening, portions of the Historical Society’s artifact collection will be displayed in themed exhibits which will be rotated and updated from time to time. Careful attention has been given to include histories from all across Pulaski County. Among displays for the opening will be exhibits on the county’s pre-historic mastodons, the Potawatomi Native Americans, Pulaski County soldiers, the Pinto Trial, a Northern Indiana Power From the Past agriculture history, county schools and businesses, and more.
Following the opening night, the museum will be open Friday and Saturday, July 18-19, during the Power from the Past show. As before, the museum will then be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays. The Historical Society board is seeking volunteers to train to serve as docents so the museum may thereafter be open for additional hours. Interested persons may email: info@pulaskihistory.net The new museum facility has been made possible through a bequest from the late Don and Dee Galbreath. In 2023, the Historical Society and the Galbreath family reached an agreement which provided for the construction of the new museum and left a legacy to the Historical Society through the Community Foundation of Pulaski County.
