Commission approves funds for museum passport tour

By Charlene Sims

MOUND CITY – Janet Reynolds, treasurer of the La Cygne Historical Society,, met with the Linn County Commissioners on Monday, Sept. 22, to discuss plans that had been made by the historical museums in the county and former Economic Development Director Chasity Ware.

Reynold told the commissioners that the museums and Ware had planned on holding an organized tour on Oct. 18 and 19. The tour will visit all the Linn County museums, La Cygne, Pleasanton, Parker, Trading Post, and Mound City.

This event would be a practice run for an event that Linn County could hold during the World Cup in Kansas City to bring people down to Linn County. Another practice run had been planned in last June, but because of several issues that one did not happen.

Reynolds explained to the commissioners that Ware had planned on working with Southeast Kansas Tourism and other to get Linn County included in advertising.

The event would run from 10 a.m.to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18 and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19. She told the commissioners that the museums would split up activities and and have a passport to be stamped showing which museums they had attended.

Reynolds said the schedule and features were:

Saturday

• 10 a.m. to noon, Trading Post would be featured and a brunch would be served there. That location would focus on the history of the early French settlement and Native American History.

• From noon to 2 p.m., the Linn County Historical Society museum in Pleasanton would be featured. Since they were unsure if there would be help to do any kind of food, that was left open.

• Mound City would be from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and they would serve cookies and coffee and drinks. She said the Mound City Historical Society main features would be the Montgomery House and the Underground Railroad.

Sunday

• Noon to 2 p.m. the La Cygne Museum, volunteers would serve chili and chips and would feature their antique quilt exhibit and a presentation by the Young Historians on exhibits and artifacts in the museum.

• 2 to 4 p.m., the Parker Historical Society was going to serve cookies and drinks and feature their one-room school.

Reynolds told the commissioners that Ware said she was going to use economic development funds to give each location $100 for refreshments and for advertising. She was also going to develop social media ads to help the museums advertise.

She talked about the plans for preparing for this with Ware who is no longer in that position and she told the commissioners that each museum was going to donate something to go in gift basket.

People who had attended all five locations would have their passports put in a basket and their would be a drawing. She said they were also going to add information on the passport about Massacre Park, Battle of Mine Creek location, St. Philippine Duchesne park and the wildlife area that people might like to visit when they were in Linn County.

Reynolds said it was unknown whether the coalition of historical societies and museums would continue beyond the tour without Ware and also the economic development funds. She asked the commissioners if the county would support this effort that the historical societies had been working on.

Commissioner Jason Hightower said he was in favor of supporting the project and made a motion to pay for the printing of the passports, advertising, and the $100 for each museum to server refreshments out of economic development. The motion passed unanimously.