The Crawford County Historical Society was formed to keep records and artifacts. [The society] meets nine months of the year. We have a membership, we have a board of directors, and [we have] officers. I’m [currently] the President, and David Keller [is Vice President]. Back in 1941, I think it was, [the county society was] visiting with a state historical society, and [it was recommended] that they build a museum to house artifacts. The people from Spencer Chemical Company donated land, and built a small [wooden] building located at Joplin and Madison; but they soon ran out of space at the original museum. In fact, there was something they had to set outside—the coal car that shows the mining scene—it used to sit out in front of the little building. [The lack of space] was the reason they decided to make a new building. [The original museum] was the nucleus of some of this stuff. That’s where the stage coach came from, and some of the stuffed animals, and some of the show cases and displays.

Originally we had a set of plans, before I came out, that showed putting [a museum] out at the State Park, here up on Highway 69, and they were going to make it a museum plus an art center, but that never did fly. [They chose to build the mew museum here] because this was county property. They leased it to the Crawford County Historical Society at a dollar a year for ninety-nine years. We had several comments [that the museum] should’ve been closer to town, which probably it should’ve been. I don’t know. The bypass was here already when they built [the museum], and a fellow by the name of Bill Snyder ramrodded putting up the building. He was a volunteer, too, and President of the society at one time. But he’s gone now. This [museum] was opened in 1978, and we had a big open house and everything.

Bob Blunk at PSU helped design the inside of [the new museum], but since then it’s been changed several times, due to the fact that we have artifacts that should be shown so people can see ‘em. When I came out here, they had twenty-five feet blocked off for storage back there, and that’s no place for artifacts. You need ‘em out where you can see ‘em.

At the same time they built this building, they had made plans to move out this "mom and pop" grocery store, which came from 412 South Broadway, where Shakey’s is right now. It was [originally] a Kentucky Fried Chicken building—that’s where that building came from. It was moved to the little museum on Madison and Joplin, they they never did open it up. They used it for storage. When they moved it out here, I spent six month re-doing the store—moving stuff out of the store that should be over here on exhibit. The school house was moved out here, too. I can’t remember when, but probably in 1985. It was moved out from George Nettels. Now different [elementary] schools come in and have classes all day in [the old school building].

They put this [brochure] out when we opened up in ‘78. It gives you a little bit of [the museum’s] history. It reads:

The spirited citizens from all over Crawford County agree that their purpose was to collect historical data, literature, and artifacts related to the county’s history. The problem in 1941 and for the next twenty-five years was money. Dues to the society were ten cents a year, and it has remained a bargain ever since. The Crawford County society finally committed itself to the construction of a museum in 1967, by asking the County Commissioner for permission to incorporate as a nonprofit organization. The turning point was when the committee chairman met with Spencer Chemical Company...

[Already we have] run out of space here. [The museum was] built 125 feet long, and we added fifty feet on in the late 1980’s. We just finished adding [another] one hundred feet. So, it’s been added to twice, and we’ve run out of space for artifacts that should be preserved for the future. There’s a lot of artifacts that we’ll have to start turning down because there’s too many duplicates. What’s old to you, [or seems like] just an odd piece of junk, [may tell a story] when it’s really looked at and taken care of.

Some of [this collection] gets dumped off, and some people tell us they’re gonna bring it. We have a lot of problems with people coming from out of town to clean out their aunt or uncle’s house, see, and they bring out stuff that they don’t want, but don’t want to throw away. Some of it isn’t that old, like the other day [we got an] electric cash register. There’s a couple other things, like a TV set that came from a lady’s house [that] her relatives brought out. They didn’t know what to do with it, but they hated to throw it away, so I can see their point. But some of [the stuff] they bring is junkie, [and often] has no bearing on Crawford County.

I’d say ninety-nine percent of the stuff in the building has come from Crawford County. We’re trying to preserve [local] artifacts. We don’t go much in to paper—we leave that for the library—but I really think it makes an impact on people [if they] come and see [our collection]. A good impact, I think, especially if they come in and really look around. Yesterday there was a lady who came in, and she was here about an hour. [She] looked around, readin’ everything. [A lot of] visitors will stay an hour, or an hour and a half, just really looking at things, and readin’ what [the displays] are about. The [regular] people that come out here will bring [guests] out with them when they come into town to visit.

We get about four thousand visitors a year, counting school children. A bunch of kids come out here on Kansas Day in January. On average, it’s awful slow. Groups is when we get the most traffic, usually retired people, fifty and older. [Teenagers] probably don’t want to come out here. [They have] other things [they] want to do after school. But, when we get the grade school children out, they go through pretty quick ‘cause they’ve got to get back to school. so we always encourage them to ask their parents to come out on a weekend with them when their parents have time. We’ve had several [kids come back] this year, more than we’ve had for awhile. The kids will bring their parents back, and they’ll start pointing stuff out to their parents. I think they like that big, ol’ fire engine back there—Pittsburg got that in 1938. [They also like] that stage coach, or omnibus, which it really is. It raveled from St. Joe, Oklahoma to Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma, [and was] restored by Bill and Fred Snyder. The Smithsonian found out they’d restored it, and they wanted it—it’s valued at ten thousand dollars. It’s stuff like this you’re not gonna see again, except in museums or maybe in the movies. [People can visit] five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. I’m out here most of the time, and I learn somethin’ out here ‘bout every day. I really do.

I’ll be eighty years old next year. See, I retired in, well I was fifty-five when I retired, twenty-four years ago, so I’ve been involved about twenty-two years, as President of the Crawford County Historical Society. Therefore, [I] get to work. The society is [responsible for the museum’s upkeep], and I am, too. I enjoy it—it gives me something to do. And the salary’s great, the salary’s great. I make a dollar a day—I got a raise this year. Instead of one zero, I get two zeros.

I worked two grocery stores after I graduated. You know where Ampride is? That used to be a wooden building. That wood building was a grocery store where I [started working] in 1935-36, I can’t remember. I worked my way through high school. I went to school in the day time, [and] worked from 4:00 p.m. to midnight, [for] nine dollars a week. I put myself through school, and bought by own clothes. I had all kinds of fancy clothes. I bought two suits one time for fifteen dollars. I don’t know why I did it. I bought a whit suit, and a green, wooly one. [I also bought a pair of] boxed-toed shoes. They were the fad back then, in the forties.

In 1941, I worked for the telephone company. I worked for a year, then went to the service, and put tow and a half years in Europe, then came back and went back to work for the telephone company. I got home October thirteenth, and went back to work the First of December. [I made] twenty-five dollars a week, good money then. And I had a job to come back to—some guys didn’t have a job. [After retiring from the telephone company], I worked a couple years over at the legion office. I became actively involved with the new museum after it was built.

It doesn’t cost anything to visit [the museum]. [We take] donations, strictly donations. It’s tax money that’s keeping [the museum] open, and it doesn’t cost anything out of pocket. The donations we get can do a little bit more. We got a five thousand dollar check from one lady—and that’s the biggest [donation] I think we’ve ever gotten. The committee, or membership, might [change the way we operate] someday. And, the location is not the best in the world. But it’s gonna have to stay now, ‘cause, like I told you, we’ve added 150 feet to it. They might to something after I’m gone, I don’t know.

I doubt that [a member of the society] will take my place when I’m gone. But I hope they will. They got to do something, ‘cause see, it takes people that are retired to spend the time out here; and the young people, well, I’d say in their forties, are still earning a living, and Lord knows they’re paying hospitalization premiums and all that stuff. But, I think people should keep [the museum] goin’, I really do. They just don't want to work at it, you know. Most people retire now at fifty-five, maybe sixty, and a lot of ‘em sit on their fat asses and don’t do anything. Our [society] membership is older. David Keller is about the youngest one on there. We’ve probably got four or five that are of a young age, and the rest of ‘em, well, some of ‘em cant’ even go out after dark. [A few members] can’t drive. And actually, our society membership is down. We need to build that up.

We [also] need more visitation from local people. We advertise, but it seems like it doesn’t reach the people well enough. We’re going to have to start programs, like bring in a speaker, stuff like that, I guess. But that takes a lot of work to line up something like that. See, the state has a speaker’s bureau...then [the state] pays ‘em, but you have to have time or advertisement worth two hundred dollars. I tried to get J.T. Knoll one time. He wanted money to come out here, but we don’t have money for that purpose, see. We had another guy that wanted money, too, but he finally joined the society so he came out to do [his presentation] for free.

[This museum is] a good thing to keep goin’. It shows our roots...where we came from. We’ve got those telephone books from back in the twenties. In the 1930’s, I helped deliver those little books. I didn’t get paid because my dad had the job, but I had to help him. I like those [phone books] because the other day, I got in a conversation with a buddy of mine, and he had been talking to a friend about all of the filling stations that were in Pittsburg. Well, they’re listed in there—a page and a quarter full. [Back then], when you’d pick up your phone, you got the operator. She’d say, "Number please." And then she’d put a cord in, and ring their phone for you. You didn’t dial it yourself. The numbers were small. I remember my folks’ telephone number was 368.

One time we were all here on a weekend to baby-sit the place, and I went through some old telephone books. I could see where we’d lived, and where we’d traded. [Things have really changed since then]. You didn’t have a plastic charge card [for shopping] then. [The store clerk] wrote down [the dollar amount] you owed him. You bought groceries from pay day to pay day, much differently than people today.

[With these books] you can see how Pittsburg has grown. A lot of these places go out of business. We had over 130 grocery stores at one time in Pittsburg. About every two blocks you had a grocery store, run by a man and wife. Up and down Broadway you had umpteen grocery stores right down town.

The things you see [in the museum], you never see again, some of ‘em. It shows a progress of the civilization in the county, of the people. We’ve got the old typewriters back there, and then we’ve got an older model computer. Before computers they had punch card machines, see. So, it show a progress of the citizens of Crawford County, in the technology. Like now you’ve got a little console that you use to transfer numbers, you know, instead of that old lag nose switch board back there.

[The museum] adds to the community because you come out here and you can kinda see what your grandparents might of had to contend with, what they had to use, just like the fancy bathtub back there, There’s a coal fire stove back there, [too]. It gives you a feeling of what might have been, what was. Today we go turn on a switch that turns on the heat, or air, or lights, or [any of] that good stuff.

[The museum’s goal] is to maintain a place to house artifacts...to preserve the past for the future, really. I think this should be kept going for your future, or your children’s future, whatever, and maintained over the years. But I’m going to have to retire one of these days.

This oral history was prepared by Rachel Sorrick, Spring 2001