Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this May 29, 2025. Have your host James
Jamail off here and welcoming in the studio. Our good friend, Alison Bruner, with the
Southwood County Historical Museum. Alison, it's good to have you with us.
Hi, James. Thank you for having us.
It's always good to talk with you guys. Please say hi to Phil and the gang everybody
over there for us. We appreciate them. Appreciate you guys keeping history alive over there
and having so much fun. We're going to have some fun today because we got a lot of events
and exhibits to go over. Let's kick things off with a good one coming up. I believe June
1st, right? Yeah. This Sunday, June 1st, as James said, we have our speaker presentation
from Brett Barker. He's actually the chair of the history department and international
studies at UWSP. So he is very graciously joining us to talk about recovering the civil
war through letters and diaries. As I've mentioned to you and ramble the
Phil for the years, I'm a nerd about history, love history. I get really the more involved
it gets or the closer it gets. I like American history and then like local history and just
get more and more entwined. I don't think a lot of the stuff that is going to be covered
in this is really common knowledge. I think a lot of it is going to be new to people.
Along with some stuff that I think maybe even fill in some blanks in some ways. It should
be noted too, Brett is really good at this. He's been doing this for a very long time,
knows what he's doing, knows what he's talking about. I feel like it's one of those things
that the thoughts that you have about it, I think come up more in the conversation and
when you're listening to him and everything, I really do think this is something for everybody
and everybody should attend. Absolutely. We recommend all age ranges, especially what's
particular about this one. It's in coordination with our current traveling exhibit, becoming
the United States, which focuses on gleaning information from primary sources. So that's
exactly what he's doing with the diaries and letters. This is our interpretation of
what they're writing, but we're getting it right from the source. So I'm really looking
forward to what he can tell us more. It is fascinating. Just as a loose example,
we're still finding dinosaur bones. I know that that might seem, oh, what's a big deal.
That's amazing. That's pretty darn amazing, considering how much we've dug up of this
planet and everything already and that we're still discovering stuff like that. It's
very similar with our history and where we are still discovering things that we think
we understood, we knew quite a bit and we're getting more and more data and more information
on. This is a really great resource for this too, because this comes from recovered
civil war letters, right? Yeah. Really, when you think about the study of history and
being such a fun topic in area, you think you might know the answer now and 50 years
down the road, something new comes up and it completely changes. So it's always an
evolving field and it's fun for people to keep coming back and learn more. I don't
know if people think about that with history often enough, but it is an evolving field.
That is such a good way to put that. It's a fun part of it too, especially for those
that like to attend these things. Yeah, absolutely. And I love the combination of that going
along with the touring exhibit. That's a really fun combination of those things. So again,
the real war will never get in the books, recovering the civil war through letters and
diaries is going to be going on this Sunday, June 1st, at 2 o'clock, over at the beautiful
South County Historical Museum. And again, thanks to Brett for doing that and being a guest
on that one. That is really fun. Got some other great things coming up as well.
All right, let's go ahead and see you up for it. What do you want to talk about next?
Yeah, all right. Well, we also, we last time we were here, we talked about the Wisconsin
Prairie Chicken Festival. Yeah. So that happened. They put together a fantastic exhibit that had
the Hammerstrom history, the festival group itself. So now through the end of the season,
the folks at Wood Trust Bank put together a really fascinating display talking about their years
in the community. They were founded in 1891 as the Wood County National Bank. So it goes
over well over a century of who's kind of been there, how some things have changed. And there's
some fun bits of nostalgia there for people to enjoy as well. And I also am glad you brought
this up. We love our friends over there, great people over there. And I, from what I was seeing
in the newsletter and some of that, it would seem very successful, seemed like things wouldn't
really go. Yeah. Yeah. And we last year we featured things on the first national bank on Grand
Avenue. So there was the winter connection with them. So we wanted to be able to showcase
this year, the bank that's still locally run. So how fascinating that it's been going as long
as it has and still serving the community. Yeah, great to hear. Well, I wanted to mention
the third street walking tour as well. I mean, remind people about that. You guys already had one
of them come up, but you got one around the corner. How did the one on May 21st go? Well,
unfortunately, we did have to cancel that. So the weather was kind of dreary, kind of cold. And
we thought, you know what, we're going to wait and hope that the weather holds for the next one.
So next up, we have June 8th. So that's not this Sunday, but the following Sunday, we have Phil
Brown, who is our vice president and all things historical information. He's leading the tours
at one o'clock and two thirty. So we still have a couple spots available. If you're interested,
you can give us a call at the museum. So we start from the museum. We kind of wind our way along
the sidewalk on the west side. We talk about the Nash family, the brazo family, a couple spots
along the way. We go to the hospital. We have such a fascinating medical history in town. And we
kind of hit a few spots along the way. It's last year, we started the tours that had been a
number of years. And we had a nice age range. So it's another one of those we recommend anyone
of all ages to join us. It's, you know, I think especially when it comes to people, they've spent
maybe their whole lives in this town. But people like myself that have been here for, you know,
half my life pretty much. There's buildings and streets that I've gone down that I enjoy or I like
the look of them. But I don't know, even a bit, a little bit of some of the history. This is a
real good opportunity to get it. Get that information. And from one of the best sources you can,
Phil is so much such a good talker, so much fun with this stuff, his energy. If I just met Phil,
I would have thought he'd just start it because he's just got that same energy from the first time
I talked to him and everything. Just really enjoys what he does. Absolutely. We always joke with
them. We're like, okay, Phil, you got to remember to try to keep the surround an hour. Sometimes we
have to send him a couple messages. We got to start wrapping up. That's awesome. Yeah. And
not only a great chance to hear those stories and stuff, but also gets into the architecture of
these, some of these awesome styles of buildings and everything around us, which is another thing
that I just enjoy the hearing about and it does a really nice job with. Yeah. Yeah. That third street
walking tour is coming up June 8th at one o'clock and then another tour will begin at 2.30. That's
why we got to keep it to an hour, Phil. That's what we're going to do. And we'll give you the
information of how you can find out more about that and signing up and reserving your spot before
we wrap up with Allison today. Allison, what else did you want in the touch on? Well, so at the end
of June, that's when becoming the United States, that current traveling exhibit comes to a close
unfortunately. So it heads off to its next location. But in its place, we then have working warriors
coming from the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, which focuses on military roles beyond combat. So
you think of your lawyers, your dentists, your mechanics, it's sort of a glimpse into something
you might not necessarily think of. And again, another one of those things that is really not only
meaningful, but goes a long way with learning and interesting nonetheless. Yeah. I also wanted to
mention the timeless tales, the story time that you guys are going to be doing. That's a really
cool idea like this. Yeah. Yeah. We were looking at things. This is actually our 70th anniversary.
It's the historical corporation. And we're very fortunate to be in the beautiful spot we're in,
which used to be the TB Scott Public Library. And we didn't want to step on the toes too much of
McMillan. So we thought, well, we'll just do some little story times, get some people there. We
have a beautiful property on the river. You know, do a short story time with the kids and then we'll
make a little craft with them and try to get some some younger families to the museum who maybe
have never visited us before. It's a great idea. We talk about this a lot. When kids get this
stuff at a young age, they are that much more inclined to take an interest the rest of their lives,
whether that's their own history or personal history or a local history, or maybe even getting
involved in history and maybe taking your job one day else or something like that. That's what
this is about. You know, whatever the industry were in, we're trying to spark interest in others.
And this is a great opportunity to do it, especially June 26th. They see Charlotte's Web will be
featured. A classic July 10th. You've got Little House in the Big Woods, Laurel Wingo Wilder,
of course, another classic. And then Anna Green Gables, Ella Montgomery in August, one of my mom
and my sister's favorites. That's all great selections, all great choices. And that is going to be
a really fun way to get them familiar with the building, familiar with the what you guys are doing,
over there and some of that as well as all this great stuff that they'll be experiencing.
Yeah, yeah. We're always looking for new people to join us. We're always looking for volunteers.
Maybe whether you want to just help greet people, you want to help do some historical research.
The world always needs more stewards in the world of history. So we're always available for people.
I'm glad you segueed perfectly for me. I wanted to make sure to mention the cranberry blossom
festival. I'm not sure next time we'll get a chance to talk to you. So I wanted to make sure to
reference it because that is coming up in June. It's it. While it doesn't seem that far away,
it'll be it'll be tomorrow like in seconds. You guys are going to be you're going to have an
exhibits open for that in an ice cream social. And we'll be talking about these on our show when
we get closer to it, of course, but did want to remind everybody about it and can always use
volunteers for these events. Yeah. Yeah. So we have expanded hours. We aren't traditionally open
on Fridays, but we wanted to be there for anyone who's out of town. Maybe you aren't from the
area or maybe you grew up and you're visiting during that specific time. So we'll be open on Friday
from one to three for the exhibits. That Saturday, the 21st, we have our classic ice cream social
and that's from one to three while supplies last though on the ice cream. The exhibits will be open
once we're out, we're out. Keep that in mind. Get over there early, everybody. And visit the
museum as much as you can and and help with the work that they're doing over there. Not only
you getting a great time and great information and everything that you're helping them do the
good work that they're doing, keeping history alive in this area. Yeah. Alison, did we cover
everything? Did we get to it? I think so for the moment. Right on. It's like we covered some good
ground here. But there's always more to cover. So you have to come back. That's just the way
that I'm so sorry, but you're going to have to come back and we look forward to it when you do.
If people have follow questions, would like to know more, Alison, how can they get in touch with
you guys at the museum and find out more? Yeah, so you can either give us a call. Our phone number
is 715-423-1580 or if you prefer email, you can touch base with me at Alison at southwoodcountyhistory.org.
And that's a long one, but it's also on our website. So if you have any questions, just find us
there. And that website is SWCHS-museum.com SWCH-museum.com. I have tested this many times. If you
throw into your search at our southwood county historical museum, it pops the first thing,
the pops up. So you should be able to find pretty easy that way as well. Thank you again for the
time, Alison. Yeah, thanks, James. And thanks to all of you for joining us here at WFHR's Rapids Report.
