you
We have a busy morning show week here on WRC radio and we kick it off with some history leading up toward July 4th weekend.
A good time to be talking about some of the things going on in celebration of the 250th event for America.
And locally, the president of virtual and county historical society, Ken Thied is in the studio to join us today.
Good morning, Ken.
Always a pleasure.
Good to see you, Phil.
Good to see you.
And this is an exciting time.
Uh, as we look at America's history, you and I were talking before one on the air.
I'm not sure we have the hype we did in 1976.
There's nowhere
near the hype.
It's kind of unique.
When you talk 1976, everybody was looking at that Bicentennial year and they had it kind of pegged from a year prior, a lot of local communities.
I'd mentioned a Volca, for example.
had really a bicentennial theme and everybody was looking to really make that a celebration.
Avoka is always known for it.
Lone Rock is known for their 4th of July.
The fireworks in basketball.
But with those histories, that was different 50 years ago than it is a little bit.
And I got to applaud WRCO and their bites that they have.
I really appreciate those.
And nobody has used the term semi quintentennial.
We always said bicentennial.
It was easy to say.
Everybody's saying 250th.
You know, that's easier.
It's smoother.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It definitely is.
But I remember red, white and blue mailboxes.
Yes.
There was a real effort to paint fire.
plugs that were red, white and blue.
Everything centered around that color scheme and a very patriotic theme.
The flags were out, which I really admire.
And our veterans and our legions and our legion auxiliaries really emphasize that with their theme as well.
So that red, white and blue banner and flag and all the stuff that centers around really what is the fourth of July.
Right.
So history has been a large part of your life.
It kind of is your life, isn't it?
I enjoy history.
I am able to enjoy it in retirement even more.
As I say to anyone asks, how is retirement?
I said, I recommend it for everyone.
I have been able to do a lot of individual projects, a lot of projects that I've always wanted to do.
I've
I had the opportunity to read more books that have been on my to-do list.
I don't know about you, but my to-do list is always longer than my to-done list.
But I've been able to read a lot more books that I wanted to read for my personal enrichment, my personal love, passion, and history is obviously surrounding it.
Nonfiction
books are a whole part of it.
You've been working on, I know, some history with the WIAA.
some musketeer history, am I leaving something out?
I've started too many projects that I haven't finished and it all goes back.
We just had our family reunion and I will mention later on about challenging everyone to do their family history.
I always do that when I go into Mr. Thompson's class and any of the students that have been there, my first day in Mr. Thompson's class, I give them a family tree to fill out and they'll start filling it out and then I'll say, can you put the birthdays in?
And then I'll ask for middle names and maiden names and
and it used to be and this goes back let's say 50 years and you go to the family Bible and in the family Bible you would keep a copy of that history of your family and we aren't doing that and just like the history that we research there's a really strong history of the early history but we take and I'm going to use the year 1900 to 1950 there's a real void there where we haven't written that history
And so my point of emphasis in the research I've been doing lately is to make sure that we don't overlook that history.
And when you're thinking about it and think of your own family and you have a family reunion and you haven't seen a cousin in a long time or all of a sudden you start saying, what relation are we there?
Are we second cousins once removed or however that's termed?
I would challenge everyone just to sit down and look at a family history and get as much recorded as you can now.
What I did for our family, my aunt in 1984 had written a family history and I took that and then I referred to it as the next generation.
So I took
what she had, and I cast it forward with all my cousins, with their children and their grandchildren now, because we could easily lose sight of that.
We always try to say, okay, well, we've got the grandparents, and where did they come from, and where did they settle?
We lose that history.
They challenged me, it was easily 10 years ago,
They said, you know, Muscatay, uh, we graduated from Muscatay and they graduated the 1950s.
Well, we were pretty good back then.
I said, really?
Well, I looked it up.
They were, uh, Muscatay and basketball was ranked number six in the state for three weeks.
And that's in a one class system in 1950.
I can go through the number of conference championships that they won over that time frame.
Of course, then Moskede added on a Volca and then Bloorver came in and became Riverdale.
So where I went with the history is, and I've been able to find the WIA's history of all the conferences and all the conference schools.
And as it's sometimes used on quizzes, I think is mascot names and that's really neat.
And just shared some,
History are next year.
We're coming up on was Zika won the state track championship now.
Nobody knows that Nobody's really familiar.
I think what Zika is because I've sent the materials and I think the region Valley schools because I've sent it to conference Schools and their athletic directors was Zika one state in 1927 and track, you know, we can easily lose that and that was a hundred years ago and
And we need to celebrate that.
We need to celebrate history.
I was asked once by a person I hold in a very high regard, what's the importance of history?
And while the old line is, if you don't recognize history, you fail to repeat it.
Surely you will.
And the idea of history, how many people have said, and you probably said it yourself.
Didn't really care for it in high school, but now I watch the History Channel and I'm reading history books.
We become more enamored with it, I think, the older we get.
I got to give a shout out if I could too, and I'd mention it to you in a contact.
Alan, on behalf when he was in here a couple months ago, Alan, you did an outstanding job.
of just stepping us through Richland Center.
And I value that so much, that history that he gave, the recall that he provided is golden.
It is precious.
And I always say this, and I think Alan would agree, somebody will always say, oh, you miss that one.
You know what?
If I miss that one, that's no big deal to me.
It's all the ones we got.
And that's what's intended.
There's no,
intent of forgetting someone and you've heard people say, I don't want to go through a list because I'll surely forget someone.
History is what we remember and oral history really truly is a part of it.
Tell me as you talk about your mom and dad and maybe your grandparents and reference, Mr. Majeski and you could probably go down a full list of all your teachers at Ithaca that you had.
That's historical.
You recall things.
Those
are things and most are really good things and some of the sad or bad things even are very valuable
for historical purposes.
And back in the day I think if you tell stories about a teacher whether you went to original center Riverdale or whatever the teacher stayed in one spot a lot more than they do now and some still do you know spend a career there but I think if you mentioned it somebody that graduated 20 years after you
can relate because they had them too.
Well, yeah, I was in the third generation when I retired, so I had 35 years in.
And I'm sure my students have plenty of stories on me.
I had said to my daughters, when I die, I would love to have at the visitation a poster board where they could put thetisms and all the zingers one liners and anything else that they remember.
And what's scary is some of the stories I don't even remember, you know, they remember that time and I, oh my, yeah, I do remember now.
Well, Alan did such a remarkable job recounting all of the businesses in the original center.
Can you do that in Muscaday?
I'd like to see I can.
I'd like to see I can with the help of colleagues.
I've really taken on Muscaday with this reason.
There was histories written back in the day.
Richland County and Crawford County, of course, have theirs, the minor book that's three inches wide.
Well, Grand County has that also.
It's the Butterfield version, 1881, and you can find other references.
In fact, if you listen to your history moment from this past weekend, Thursday and Sunday, I did the history of Muscatay as far as how it was named on a different level.
There's actually Indian chief that was named Muscatay in the area.
With the history of Muscaday, there's really been four key versions.
For the Centennial, Wisconsin Centennial, 1948, Carol Mueller, schoolteacher, wrote a history of Muscaday and she listed all of the graduates of Muscaday High School from the origins all the way up to 1948, so valuable.
and of course at the library in the history room at the Muscatty Library there are many not all annuals and that's something to think about with families if ever you come across one you say well what could we do with that the Muscatty Library will gladly take them and then in this bicentennial she was a teacher just to put a date on her she was prior to Julius Ward her name is Helen Geller and she wrote a history of Muscatty in 1976
Well, the guy that is the noted historian of Muskaday is a guy by the name of John Duffy and he started it as a bicentennial project with his ads in the newspaper for Duffy's surface station and he'd tell a little story and that story kind of just snowballed and for 18 years he wrote
weekly versions and sometimes to be continued next week on stories of Muscatay, the Muscatay area, the surrounding communities, and really what was a part of the history.
Well, I felt we needed to take it from 1976 to the present.
And so what I've put together is a 15 page version
of the history of Muscatay from 1976 to 2026 and with that account I wrote it in the same format that Helen Geller wrote hers.
So it starts out by talking about the village offices and the village president and it goes on to identify homes in the fire department and you can step right through and purposely I've added other things that wouldn't be a part probably one of the most visible historical.
events was the Muscatty Incinerator.
Now, if you go back to that time period in that day, that was landmark.
It was, you know, Richland County, Iowa County, and Grand County bought into it and it failed.
So in again, a negative situation, it was extremely historical.
to have that type of a scene.
How has it changed over the time period?
In my closing part of the story, I talk about how Muscatay changed from 1970.
Can you imagine?
I could go down the list.
There were nine gas stations in Muscatay in the 1970s.
There were three grocery stores, regular grocery stores.
There were seven businesses on the main block of Muscatay, thriving businesses that
were a part of, and again, it was a different time.
My dad always talked about coming to Richland Center on Friday, that's when you went and shopped.
Everybody would come on Friday afternoon, Friday evening to do their shopping in town.
Well, in Muscatate it was no different, and the Industrial Corporation, and there were 11 companies in the industrial park, in the 1970s.
that's unbelievable that you think back really musketeer was that thriving and it was still about a thousand people you know I think it peaked at 1331 and then you always talk about Richland Center hasn't it always been right around 5000 you know 4997 and 5000 and 13 if you remember your your decades of changing that sign entering the city
but that's truly a part of the history.
So when I did this project, I did it with the intent of a semi-quincentennial project, and it's actually titled from 1976 to 2026, Muscaday.
And interesting stuff and I know that you mentioned the other businesses to I can't find this but the number.
It wasn't people that necessarily lived in musketeer people drove from far and wide to work at a lot of these companies to
absolutely and you talk about bedroom communities.
It's no different in a grander scheme of things.
around the Madison area and I can bring up a 1970s video of Richland Center where they said well you know people drove from the other side of Madison to come to Richland Center to shop.
Well when that new shopping mall comes in out there that's really going to bring the business in.
As they talk about those things that was a
different era of spending.
Now you can have it delivered to your doorstep the next day.
And that to me just boggles my mind.
And we're dealing with a whole generation that is ordering online.
Well, you used to go to the stores and then if you needed repair, there were repair shops.
I'll give you one that Alan mentioned, but Butch's shoe repair, I remember.
Ben entered two or three times to have my shoes repaired.
It's crossed from the courthouse west side next to what was the old IGA and now it's health and human services.
And it was December and he said, well, he said, I won't be able to fix them again.
I said, what do you mean?
He goes, I'm closing up.
He goes, I can't match prices and sales.
I loved but just shoe repair and those shoes you wore, they were like slippers.
So you wore them forever.
But I think I had them resold twice.
and you're nodding because you know that's a part of that history that we've lost.
Yeah, more of a
throwaway society now, that's for sure.
Absolutely.
I found the list, this is from Helen's thing, list of businesses, and this was when she published this in- Please, 1976.
So Muscaday Cheese Factory, which is now Meisters,
craft coal storage, which became marathon cheese.
Right.
Kirkpatrick coal storage.
Cheese was big in Muscatay.
It was one
of the slides for the, uh, Muscatay mile that the chamber has sponsored was on the cheese industry in
Muscatay.
Really?
Okay.
Matthew's lumber company, which exists, easy trail wagons.
I remember seeing those on main street.
It
was
the
old Cradwell garage and it's now raised.
It's gone, but they would actually wheel them out by opening up the garage doors and they'd route.
wheel the running gear out on the main street and then they'd have a semi-park behind and they would stack these running gears and they were bright red with a white easy trail sign.
Now here's a quick history for you.
It's now foggy bottom woodworks.
It's down on Warehouse Street and they had moved from the Kirkpatrick building on Main Street, Muscaday down to what I would refer to as the industrial park.
There's still a, it's about a 12 by 18 easy trail sign above the doorway.
And I had said to Rick Tisdale and his birthday is coming up here on July 1st.
So happy birthday, Rick.
He said, I'm going to leave that sign there.
I'm not taking it down.
And I've got a picture of it.
But think about that.
Easy and easy trail wagons weren't just here.
Oh, they were
nationwide.
They shipped them all over the place.
But locally, I mean, I remember we had one or two running gears running
gears.
It was the popular mode.
It was a great product.
And it
was made in Muscatay in Muscatay, Wisconsin.
Scott Industries, of course, which we still have JTE engineering, especially engineering.
They did a honing
honing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Riverdale Manor, which is now Riverdale nursing home.
It's actually a Riverside.
They've changed the name and it's updated, but that's just recent.
It's went through several names, but everybody still calls it.
The Riverdale Manor.
Muscatay Machine
Company?
Yep.
The machining works again.
It would be very similar to what they were doing at Universal.
Oh,
sure.
You know that type of stuff.
And Howard Rodevator.
They made, Chiselplows was their mode.
Now they made a farm machinery, but it was a British company that came here and in the 1970s was prominent.
It was short lived.
I'd say that when I say within a decade it was gone, but they made Chiselplows and
They'd never had chisel plows before.
You had the old plow pan and of course the farmers will tell you the chisel plow would go down deeper and it would break up that plow pan and for farmers it was very prominent.
Now what do we do?
No till.
No till is the way to go and let's agree to two things.
First of all the seeds in today's world.
is so much more refined.
I've got to give a plug to my neighbors.
They just do a great job farming the Miespoys and I say the Miespoys and they're in their 40s and their dad is older than me.
I go across, I'm going to do it on the fourth again guys, just so you know, they farm my fields and I'm very appreciative of the job they do.
but I walked out last year on the 4th of July and you've heard the line knee high by the 4th of July and that was where you took the leaf and you pulled it up and you'd hope it gets your knee and I'm a little bit taller but you know if you could do that well I reached up and I'm a fairly tall guy and I could not reach the top of the stock on July 4th last year.
Now we'll see how it is it's not quite as far along but that just speaks to the quality
job that they do in their farming and making sure land management and the production that they're creating.
So Justin, Jeremy, you guys
do an outstanding job.
You sent a picture of Muscatay circa 1971 and it's a photo shot down the main drag there, but it brings back a lot of memories because my, my uncle Frank rented the apartment by the shoe store in conjunction with the shoe store.
It was actually a house and Nordy and Fay Reets and Rod, you're probably the same.
I hope you are.
And his folks ran that shoe store.
And of course there was living quarters there too.
But that was, uh, there were three houses there.
Actually, one was the post office for a short time.
Of course, reach shoe stores is there.
One became a
tavern and it's now sportsman sportsman's right.
But I remember, you know, walking up and down the dry.
And I remember, uh, walking over across, they bought me a new wagon, uh, at the hardware store, right across the, well,
it was any gambles and Mr. appliance after that.
And it went through a great history of the hardware store mode.
Of course we've got Walsh is still today.
Ace hardware is there.
but realize there were three hardware stores.
The other one is right next to where Walsh was, it was Schwingle hardware and Schwingle hardware on front street, dated back.
It was, and it's those vintage two story buildings.
They're probably 20 by 60 and you walk in and they have the wood floors that creak as you walk through the flooring.
And there's a full basement underneath.
And most of the basements in Muscat, especially on the main drake are sandstone.
Now think about that.
That's going to settle and it's not the best construction, but also you got to understand that Prairie Region is vulnerable to, you know, the sandstone and limestone that were in the area.
Right.
You still have some prominent businesses after all these years.
Oh,
very much so.
And I hope that, you know, we're losing buildings there in Muscatay.
And I applaud both Foggy North Coffee,
for their business and I have it in my paper and I applaud the Oceaners for the, and they call it the Uptown Social Club and English Prairie.
They've really taken on both the historical side, Scott and Susan, and I would tell you those types of things.
Well, sadly, one of mine is on the corner there.
It was originally Rosic auto sales.
And then many people, old timers will remember storms, auto sales, then became Cooley Motors.
And then Cooley Motors will move to where now Brent Steadley has his shop can be on the North side of town.
It became a pole shed.
I still remember now this will give you a little history.
Last, they only had two left of the seven foot haybinds, that new cutting machine that you could have instead of sickle mowers and conditioners, you could
get a seven foot haybind.
Yeah.
Good farm history.
I remember we had a, it was called a mower conditioner.
Yes.
Yes.
You had the sickle bar and then you had the crimper, you know, and you, you'd mow and then you'd come around the next time you're mowing and then you're,
crushing a hay or whatever.
And, um, yeah, my dad got kind of tired of getting it plugged up.
Cause if one would plug up the other was, you know, and so, so I remember when the Heston seven foot haybind came out, bought right over here, that was, uh, that was a amazing change because
it was all in one.
You know,
you went, you still could get it bound up, but, but the problem was usually when you were making a corner, you'd taken some of that hay from the other side and then we had, uh, we had an old tobacco knife.
So we would get under and cut that off with that old tobacco knife.
And then of course you'd have to kick it into gear and you tried to plug that.
We had pliers where you'd pull out as much hay as you could.
You know, those are memories.
Oh, they sure are.
Another business that I recall, our Alice Chalmers was bought at Cooley Motors.
Northside of
town, she came in
on the right and some buildings are even lost there.
The old brewery used to be there and that's one of those
historic Muscatay mile signs is the brewery that for over 50 years existed in Muscatay and then they had a bottling workshop besides.
Cooley Motors was at the time Alice Chalmers, one of the largest distributors in Southwest Wisconsin.
And of course the strong farming communities that are in and around Muscatay would go to Cooley Motors for their purchases.
Good memories.
We'll talk more a little musketeer history coming up here.
And also there is an event that is coming up on July 8th.
We'll talk about its significance and its relation to our guest, Mr. Ken Thied, along with Mark Kopp, who might be listening this morning as well.
We'll have that when the morning show continues.
It's fun to talk history on the morning show today.
Ken Thied is in representing Richland County Historical Society, and as mentioned, a special event is coming up on July 8th.
Ken, what's the significance of July 8th?
Mark your calendars.
It is five o'clock, July 8th.
It'll be the Crattlewell Memorial Building is there on Main Street, Muscatay, and the credit needs to go entirely to Mark Cup for coming up for this.
I've just simply been able to be an accomplice and help with what's going on.
We're planning to do a reading of the Declaration of Independence, which in a historical sense, it was actually July 8th.
And you can argue, well, it was obviously read on July 4th, and it was sent, but it wasn't received for quite some time.
There were three communities in colonial America.
where on July 8th the declaration was read to a crowd at the Town Square.
And so Mark has put together a program.
It's a brief program.
It really should last about 15 or 20 minutes, but we've got a few more accomplices that are more than willing to help us.
If you've got that vintage picture of the spirit of 76, we'll have a fife and drum and flag bearer there.
And thank you to Chris Simonson and Jason Troxel and Canada Killam for contributing to that.
I need to give a shout out to Andrew Sharp, who's going to help us out with outfits that would be time period and relevant.
The American Legion is going to be there and present the colors.
We're going to have a brief introduction.
There'll be some colonial music played, and thank you, Chris, for organizing that.
We'll have a reading of the actual Declaration of Independence.
We'll have a large copy there.
It'll be a photo op if you'd like.
Maybe it's just a historical event.
There'll be light refreshments that follow.
The program, again, 15 to 20 minutes, but it's symbolic.
It is symbolic for the 250th.
It's a celebration of the Declaration of Independence.
We have put together that concept and again, credit goes to Mark and all he has done.
who is a lover of history.
He's very passionate about history as well.
The idea of reading on the Declaration of Independence is, it's no different than singing God Bless America on Sunday during a Brewer game.
It's no different than singing the Star-Spangled Banner at a sporting event.
It's no different than as we should have, the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school.
the Declaration of Independence plays that role.
And there'll be a few surprises and there'll be a few things that are just included, but you've got the basic gist of the whole activity and it's simply an event to come to five o'clock ahead of the Crattlewell building.
If it's in climate weather, we can go into the Crattlewell building.
Other people are contributing their time to help out and make this possible, but it's a historic event.
Are you and Mark going to share the reading?
I'm leaving that up to Mark.
He's much more eloquent than I am.
I'm going to be the guy that introduces it.
And so with that being said, mine will be brief, probably a couple of minutes.
And the actual reading, that's Mark's shtick.
He's going to take care of that.
Interesting.
And then you'll have some refreshments afterwards.
Light
refreshments.
And if you want to photo op, I'm more than willing to be in a picture because with my attire, I hope I'll have a vintage colonial look to me as we'll mark.
And the idea of that.
Fife and Drum and Flag Corps there with the three guys, Chris and Canada and Jason.
Those are photo ops, if you will.
It's no different than standing behind that little four by eight and sticking your head through the mushroom fest.
Well, we'll be there if you'd like to get a picture with us.
You certainly could.
How long will the program last?
If it goes more than 20 minutes, again, the reading will not be overlooked.
But it's going to be a very concise.
The brevity is with the purpose of the symbolism of the event.
It would be, if you took it back and you can read, John Nixon would have been the reader of the historical document at the time.
And he was part of that colonial Congress, the second continental Congress.
And that reading in Philadelphia, if you will, was a way of communicating to the people.
Uh, you got to understand there was, you know, there's no cell phones back then.
And just the idea of, uh, way of communicating with people, you'd go to the town square and here you hear you.
It is going to be a common part of our history in 2026.
So long ago, but
so important to remember all of
those.
Well, and, and, and as I mentioned, all those other things that tie in with the flag and Muscatty is blessed with the support of the Legion.
You drive down Muscatty's main street.
You're going to see flags all the way down main street.
And thank you to the Legion and to the Muscatty Utilities who make sure that those flags get up.
That's a part of any community and what would be their history.
to do that in Muscatay, it's just a little bit.
We're going to have fun with it, to be honest with you.
And why?
Because it's a historical event that we can enjoy.
I wonder if other
communities will be doing it that day.
I would hope so.
I have not heard of any.
And that's why we're getting the word out and Mark put together press release.
And I know you'll be promoting it here on WRCO.
Thank you for that.
The idea of doing it, it's not just a one time thing.
But this one for the 250th, you know, is certainly significant.
It was and it's, if you were to go to AI and Google it, there's communities that do.
a declaration of independence, but granted the pledge, and of course that changed when they added under God, it became important, but we kind of overlooked that.
And just the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance becomes almost mundane, and we've got to remember that's very significant.
I'm very appreciative of your hand over your heart and remove your caps.
the idea of the singing of the national anthem, the playing of the national anthem, is symbolic in and of itself, the importance of the flag.
And yeah.
The other hat that you wear, of course, is with the Ake School and that came in.
during the year of 1976.
So
we're coming up on that weekend, July 5th.
Uh, you're looking at 50 years and so much credit goes to the committee.
I'll, I'll mention two names, not to overlook others, but, uh, Kent Halk was in charge of that.
Um, he took that on as the bison, tenial chair and a history teacher.
Some will remember Alan Schaefer, uh, was a leader in that I would be a miss if I didn't.
give credit to Dr. Jerry Bauer and all he's done over the past 50 years for the ACHE school.
But that's a part of our ACHE breaking newsletter.
It will be the history moment next week after Henry Segris is a part of that and so much of that history will follow as we go.
Henry Segris is next week's history moment but then we'll have the fact that
It started off your June history moments was the 50 years, you know, we opened up and Ake School, of course, will be open one to four on Sundays through September.
If you'd like to stop out and visit us.
How is the season going this
year?
It's off to a very nice start for us in so much as we've got some machinery there and the egg exhibit is coming along.
We've got a showcase that used to be in the old high school.
We're a work in progress is the way I'd phrase it right now because this year more than any of the recent years we're adding things.
And the idea of the showcases will now be able to display some books.
some items that we really couldn't put out.
You had mentioned the other day about jacks and having that rubber golf ball to toss, but you put things like that out and they have a tendency to disappear.
Same thing with marbles, which was a big part of rural schools and the importance of the rural school setting.
Of course, if you had that cat's eye, that was the best one.
But even the colors are important.
But you can't really set those marbles out because they have a tendency to disappear.
We've tried to frame a lot of stuff to really make it look like a museum.
And I'm very proud of that.
But that showcase as we start to put things into it.
more relics is the term I would use and I'll be in touch with Crystal Foley and she's on our board and in fact she just hosted this last Sunday.
Thank you Crystal and Keith and Rob who've already hosted and I know Jay and Paul and Nick will as well.
We rotate and we do it in a rotational basis and it's you know you if you do two Sundays and
It's kind of fun just to be there for a while.
And so I hope I was at the dairy breakfast and two different students who were there in field trips mentioned the old water pump.
Of course, you can take a drink from it if you'd like.
And we do need to redo the outhouse.
It's getting a makeover, if you will, a little paint job and some new boards put on.
Um, the idea of the egg exhibit is really a plus.
And so we now have machinery there.
Uh, the signage is being made and thank you be on all signs for the quality job you do.
Um, the idea of.
little bit more is being added.
You're going to hear also this summer I'll give you a lead-in to a fall one that I'd be happy to talk about is there's going to be some historical signage on behalf of the Richland County Historical Society.
It'll be our project that we're putting around the county and that signage will identify local historical sites
and importance.
We'll be doing some special things than that actual weekend, uh, the 50th.
It's
interesting as I put it to, and we had talked about it from a year ago and we talked about it in our April meeting.
We meet twice a year and we decided not to.
And the reason for that is we didn't want to take away from, um, the Bicentennial project and its history when it was, and believe it or not, they had picnics back then.
They, they put up tents and ice cream socials.
And we've taken more of a somber approach and just kind of take it all in.
Just enjoy the school.
And so we're hoping you'll come out and visit us sometime.
That was the line that Dr. Bauer always said, but we're not going to have anything dramatic as a part of our celebration.
We're going to kind of just take a very calm, casual approach to it.
When you walk in the Yankee school, what does, what still allows you?
You know,
you know, it's funny feel cause I'll, I'll work a four Sundays during the summer and I stop out there at least twice a month just to stop.
I can honestly tell you every time I walk in the place, I'd pick up something new.
Now I'm there.
I've seen all this stuff.
Uh, the one that I always tell the students when they come and we've got well over 500 books there.
I have yet to go through all of them.
And to even say there's 500, I haven't counted them.
But every time I stop there, I'll grab another book and I'll check out another parcel.
And we've had some recent donations that have really added to the site.
Across the road, of course, the Aiki home is being refurbished.
And that in and of itself is a part of the history.
So when you walk in the building,
You can't take it all in in 15 minutes.
Some people will come for 15 minutes, do a walkthrough, and that's great that you visited.
Some people will come for an hour or two.
They'll sit down and start looking at things and reminiscing about things.
And we'll talk about what really is there.
There's a wealth of local history symbolic.
Let's go back to the 1950s.
We'll go back 75 years, if you will.
The one I have to be very candid, the one I love is when grandparents will bring their grandchildren and they'll start talking with them, what they remember.
That's precious.
That is so valuable.
Mr. Durst, a few years ago before he passed,
came and visited and I cannot tell you how much that meant and he was still in very good health and a sound mind and I had the pleasure of visiting with him for close to two hours and He didn't even talk Alice Chalmers, believe it or not.
He was talking about his experiences at the school one of the Supporters with our egg exhibit is Randy Olson
His dad went there.
I've got pictures of his dad sitting in a desk in the school and gave that to him this past spring in a
framed picture, nothing more than a picture of his dad at the school, but he's been very gracious in supporting and helping.
Danny Miles has helped out with the landscaping portion and the railroad ties donated.
My neighbor, Jeremy Meese, helped haul the machinery and Brian Breninger at L&M Salvage has been so awesome.
His line is very simple.
If it's going to the Ake School, I'm in.
And anything that sits on their lot,
I've had the opportunity to say, could we?
And he absolutely, yes.
So that farm machinery that you see there.
And by the way, we would greatly welcome anybody that's interested in donating either an older piece of machinery.
And we've even got some that we're going to be putting up in the entryway.
For example, we've got a hand sigh.
We've got a potato planner.
We've got an old corn planter.
That's the single corn planner.
You've got to remember using that hand side for going out and cutting nettles
or a
birdock.
Well, that was used for many other things.
A bale hooks, if you can, corn husking pegs.
Do you remember those?
I do.
I never
use them, but bale hooks I did because we didn't have a
kicker baler, so to speak.
Well, as I heard not too long ago, they were talking about opening up the field and cutting with a hand side so that you could go through with your one row chopper.
Well, we would pick out two rows because we had a one row picker.
And I very much remember those fall days with the Hayrack and we had some sideboards on it and we'd be husking and throwing in because we didn't want to lose out on maybe a five gallon pill of corn.
You know, we, we, we couldn't miss that.
But those were days that are so memorable.
A beautiful fall day in a sweatshirt and you'd have that husking peg on and husking out corn.
And the corn
stalks weren't as close together either.
They were
a little easier too.
Well here's some good history if you like this.
They used to have a drop seed planter so you could cultivate both ways.
And that is so outdated because well they've shortened up the rows first of all.
They've narrowed them down.
They've got
And again, that's that high grade seed and everything you're dealing with and you're going for volume and bulk.
Well, let's be honest.
I think it's every 27 days you're supposed to be, you don't want to go more than four weeks.
Every 27 days you should be cutting your hay because you want to get the highest protein value that you can out of it.
And so they're cutting what six, maybe seven cuttings where
If we got to third crop, we were doing good and we only made fourth crop after the first killing frost.
And that fourth crop probably was for young cattle because, you know, as it would be, it would be very fine, but it surely was important to get another 200 bales if you could.
Yeah, we didn't start hanging quite as early either.
I remember the month of June, and if you were done by the 4th of July
with your
first crop, you were doing really good.
And then on the 5th of July, you'd probably start your second crop.
Would
that sound right?
Well, it seemed like we bailed all summer
long.
I don't think there was
much of a break.
We took three days off when we combined oats, and we'd leave it set.
Of course, you'd set your combine a little bit higher.
We had a five-foot cut.
And what you'd do then is you'd go fishing for one day.
And then you'd come back and you'd make your straw.
Straw bales were important, of course.
And the idea of clipping it wasn't quite as tough to get out of the box stalls, you know, when, when, when they get packed in and we would make corn fodder bales, small squares.
That's a, that's a thetism.
We've got too many
young people that haven't had the opportunity to throw small square bales of hay.
And you've got to remember, if
you could get 500 bales up in a day, you're doing good.
You're doing well.
Yeah, absolutely.
But yeah, bailing the straw was always a dirty job too.
Yeah.
If you'd go to take a bath or a shower afterwards, it was brown dust.
Brutally.
Yeah, exactly.
So yeah.
And the other thing, when you take school kids and their groups through Aiki school, one of the things that I've heard is they're enamored by the
the outhouse.
It's a two-seater.
And
without getting too graphic.
Yeah.
You know, there was opportunities there, you know, where you could go and sit and visit.
And yeah.
And there, if I were to go there for just a second, you got to remember the Montgomery Awards catalog.
Cause
that was usually there for two reasons.
One was to read.
And the other was to use the paper product as
it were.
Right.
Right.
But yeah, my, I was talking to my kids about, they were appalled that
You know, someone would be sitting right there by you at
the same time.
Well, and ours, I don't know about yours, but ours had a lid that you would put on top so that when you got done, you put the lid on top so nothing dropped down into the, you know, whether it be a billfold or a watch or whatever it might be, you always wanted to make sure that the seat was covered.
Right.
Yeah.
If it was your sandwich, you probably
would.
Oh no, heaven's no.
And you know, those are things that we miss out and we have porta-potties granted, you know, that's the more modern convenience that's there.
But just to remember those things, the kids always talk about that, the games that they played at recess, we didn't have handheld games.
You know, tell me you didn't hear this line.
You guys are outside to the yard light comes on because you'd play outside.
or you're outside until supper's ready.
We'll call you when supper's ready.
I was talking with a friend yesterday and I said, you know, a day like today, because we had that rain shower that came through.
I said, this would be a perfect day to go up into the haymow and restack some of the hay.
You know, sometimes you just threw it into place.
We didn't restack the, hey, we went up and took a nap up there.
I
mean, you want to talk about a great place to take a nap.
It was in the haymow.
If it was cooler.
Now the next few days, I would not went, oh, and well, we were up there those days.
I'd usually,
I'd usually go
through about a half gallon of water in between every load.
I would talk about the contrast of being there and how hot it was.
You'd come outside and it was probably 95 degrees, but it felt so cool out
here.
And it was worse on the hay rack.
Because if you had air moving that would be great, okay?
But if the air wasn't moving that sun beating down and you're pulling out We had a bail fork that we would pull out from the bail bailer and and stacking that hay and of course a good load was five high and Tell me there aren't enough hills around this area that you had to know how to stack a good load of hay I was talking with a friend on the hay too if we made it a little wet because I saw several
farmers out as I went to the Casanovia dairy breakfast yesterday who were trying to get those round bales made before the storms came in and if it's on its own moisture it's not going to catch fire and it probably won't mold but you don't want to make wet hay.
Well, we did, and the farm we made it for, Oren Thompson, which is now where the Storms farm is, is you come out of Muscatay, we turn the bales on side, cut side up, because you'd have a cut side of your bale, and you have a bale where it was forced over.
The left side was forced over, the right side was cut by the baler.
We turn those up, and we take salt, and we only put one, and we have to turn them on end, which was extra work.
And then you'd sprinkle salt over it.
And he had two theories with it.
And I don't know if it could ever be proven, but it sure makes sense.
One, with that salt, it would draw the moisture.
Two, in the wintertime when the cows went to eat that bale, they were thirstier.
So they drink more water and produce more milk.
And so that was a good memory of making hay.
Those were good days.
You know, you look back on them now.
When we were doing it, it wasn't, you know, oh God, the burden of it.
I believe you said a quarter of load you only got.
Yeah.
It took a little while to get enough when, when 45 records went up to almost a dollar, you know, it was four, four loads.
It had to be a good song.
I always, we would always with my daughters and they had my daughter's father was a pain in the butt because he'd have his daughter's throwing square bales.
we would try to see for the last load how high we could stack that load because there's only one round left.
And, uh, I believe we got up to eight high.
And of course it got a picture of the girls up on top that load.
And that's memorable too.
You know, it's like the log stacking contest.
Well, how high could you stack your hay rack load?
And I believe there was 125 bales on that hay rack when we got done.
Yeah.
On the flat, it probably worked out all right.
It was
fine on the flat.
Yeah.
Hill sides, if you got four or five high, you were doing good.
And if a wheel hit a woodchuck hole or something,
or tell me when you go to make that corn
because you're going to go downhill.
You wanted to make sure you had it granny low and you were holding on to the shifting lever so it didn't pop out.
but you'd kind of brace yourself against the hay to make sure it didn't slide down the hay rack, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
Those are good
memories.
Good memories.
Yeah.
I wouldn't want to be bailing it today, but it'd be fun to go back, you know, the novelty of
it.
And again, Jeremy Meese says to me, do you mind if we make a few small squares?
I said, have at it because it's great for calves.
And a lot of people will make grass hay for horses.
But he said, I think the boys need to throw a few small square bales of hay.
And I said, God bless you.
That's a good thing.
You bet.
Anything else you want to add?
I'm just pleased if you're thinking about something on July 8th, do consider the program that we have.
It's a short 15-20 minute program, Muscatay, the Cradwell Building, the Declaration of Independence.
My history of Muscatay will be available next week to anyone that would like a copy, but I have and plan to put together, I've talked with Dave Bauman at Muscatay Library, and he's been extremely supportive.
I cannot tell you, David, how much I appreciate you.
that put together all those versions into a history of musketeer.
Indeed.
Well, we appreciate having you and we'll be seeing you again real soon.
I know you'll be at Lone Rock's Fourth of July parade.
I will for grace and that's a
good thing and great parade.
Isn't that a small town hometown parade?
Lone Rock, you do it right.
You and I comment because I've ridden with you in the truck a few times with Grace and you get down to the main drag and there are six or seven
people.
Where do they come
from?
Down the road.
And it's
not a short parade route.
It's a long parade route.
And they come out of the woodwork for that.
They really do indeed.
So we'll have more about that coming up this week on The Morning Show.
Thanks a lot for joining us today.
Thank you, Phil.
You bet.
President of the Richland County Historical Society, Ken Thied on today's morning show.