Tour guide Christy Nickelson, far right, talks about some of the history of Mound City at Stone Tree Coffee and Pottery during a tour she organized for area teachers on Aug. 2. (Roger Sims/Linn County Journal)
By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com
For some time Ron Nickelson, president of the Mound City Historical Society, has floated the idea of getting Linn County educators more involved in teaching about the area’s history. And while the members agreed that getting teachers involved, it was just one of several ideas that Nickelson has been promoting.
At the society’s last meeting in June, members present broke down into four working groups: events, tours, schools, and historical picture and item identifications.
As a result of that initiative, society member Christy Nickelson, who is a student support teacher at Prairie View High School, put together a daylong tour for more than a dozen educators and members of their families. Most of the educators were from Pleasanton and Jayhawk school districts, but at least one was a teacher from the Prairie View district.
Educators on the tour included teachers from all three Linn County school districts. (Roger Sims/Linn County Journal)
Christy Nickelson has said that her interest in history could be largely because of her family . Her grandmother is Ola May Earnest, the now retired longtime curator of the Linn County Genealogical Library and Museum in Pleasanton.
The tour started out at 8 a.m. in the Pleasanton High School commons area with some orientation for the day. After that, the tour group boarded vans supplied by the Pleasanton district to travel to the Linn County Museum, where current Linn County Historical Society president and curator Theresa Miller gave the group a tour.
From there it was on to the Mine Creek Battlefield State Historical Site visitor center south of Pleasanton where staff member Alison Hamilton gave a slide presentation of the battlefield site, the Trading Post Museum, and the Marais des Cygne Massacre site north of Pleasanton. After viewing a sword from the Battle of Mine Creek and listening to Jim Barnes tell the story of how it came into his family’s possession, the group headed to Stone Tree Coffee and Pottery in Mound City for refreshment and a brief talk about historical Mound City buildings.
From there the group traveled to the Linn County Courthouse where Ron Nickelson talked to the group about a veterans memorial sponsored by the American Legion Hewitt New Post No. 248 in Mound City. County Register of Deeds Kristy Schmitz led a tour of the historic courthouse.
Ron Nickelson, at left, president of the Mound City Historical Society and a member of American Legion Hewitt New Post No. 248, tells the tour group about the memorial to veterans the Legion has built in front of the Linn County Courthouse. (Roger Sims/Linn County Journal)
The Jayhawk district provided lunch for the group at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church annex in Mound City, and as they ate, they watched the Original Jayhawker, an hourlong documentary of Mound City history produced by Sue Vicory with video by Taylor Snider, both Mound City residents. After the lunch, the group toured the church and viewed the stained-glass windows.
The group also traveled around Mound City looking at several sites where the Underground Railroad system hid runaway slaves. The group then stopped at the Mound City Historical Park where they heard historian Todd Mildfelt discuss local history. Mildfelt has done considerable research and written books on Linn County’s role in the Underground Railroad and resettling Black families nearby.
The tour ended with a visit to the Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne Park near Centerville, a one-time mission where Catholic nuns ministered to Pottawatomie tribe members who survived the forced Trail of Death march from their ancestral home land in Indiana. Christy Nickelson talked about the history of the park and the 600 Pottawatomie who lost their lives, mostly to smallpox.
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