Historical Society Hosts February Lunchbox Lecture Lunchbox Lecture: Mysteries, Mischief, and Mayhem of Murray County 2021 Cemetery Tour – Slide Show Drive Through Comfort Food Fundraiser MCHS Annual Meeting Summer Raffle Fundraiser Winners Second Annual Cemetery Tour Calling all Tree Decorators – Holiday Open House Traveling Exhibit Makes a Stop at the MC Museum Small Grant Awarded for Collections Project 2021 Front Porch Music Series Frank Thayer: An Architect’s Story by Rose Moudry Baseball of Murray County by Bill Bolin Call for Project Bids Dinehart Lecture: Railroads of Murray County Lunchbox Lecture – Murray County in the 1920s PowerPoint Large Grant Awarded for Work on Dinehart Holt House Lunchbox Lecture – Draining the Great Oasis Lunchbox Lecture – Cemetery Tour Slide Show Self-Guided Cemetery Tour Covid-19 Self Interview Take Home History — Free Educational Packets for Children Murray County Historical Society Receives SMAC Grant for 2020 Dinehart Holt House Front Porch Music Series Murray County Historical Museum “Doing Our Bit” Murray County Historical Museum has another great year! Lunchbox Lecture – Nov. 14 Walt Benton and his Music Preservation Tips: LUNCHBOX LECTURES – SEASON SIX VOLUNTEERS NEEDED International Holiday Traditions 2019 Annual Meeting Glensheen: The Musical Mnopedia Story – Sweetman Catholic Colony 2018 Fundraiser A Tale of Twenty Typewriters: The Process of Deaccession Become A Member Dinehart Holt House Historic Structure Report Mnopedia Story – Chandler-Lake Wilson Tornado (1992) Mnopedia Story – Murray County Mnopedia Story – Minnesota’s First Female Sheriff – from Murray County Mnopedia Story – Murray County Fair Legacy grant helps Museum hire a writer for MNopedia Articles New in the Collection Legacy grant helps Museum Purchase a new Microfilm Reader Keeping the Collections: Deaccessioning Textile Inventory Project Waning Years of the 1891 Murray County Courthouse Brought to Light

Waning Years of the 1891 Murray County Courthouse Brought to Light

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When the courthouse was torn down in 1981 amid a wave of protests and opinions on both sides of the issue, most people remember it as a short and hard fought battle. The push for a new courthouse, however, was a long and very arduous task. The first calls for a new courthouse began as early as 1959.  A new  collection of items donated, and ultimately accessioned into the Museum collection, sheds some light on the long process.

In a phone call last fall, Janet Anderson Voges of Minnwest Bank asked if the museum was interested in a group of documents found in the basement of the  Lake Wilson Bank building. Among the many items there was a  tabletop display board with the above picture and a set of documents meant to    inform the public on  a new courthouse building; a building that relied upon the passage of an upcoming bonding bill vote.

The display included floor plans and names of the Citizens Committee for an Adequate Murray County Courthouse. The co-charimen of the committee included Richard Kahnk of Lake Wilson, Dr. Dean Nywall of Slayton, and Victor Roth of Fulda. This was when Ernie Oldewurtle, Landolph Markwardt, Leon Sierk, Walt Silvernale, and Clem Smith were the county commissioners.

Our interest was piqued, and the staff pulled out a scrapbook created on the courthouse. Newspaper articles informed the picture with all the 1966 rationale for tearing down the old structure to make way for the new.  There was no discussion the papers about  historic preservation at the time, however, the bonding bill failed. These new documents will be featured along with many other photos and      stories in the upcoming traveling courthouse exhibit coming this spring.

1966 Architectural Drawing  by Setter, Leach, and Lindstrom, Inc.
1966 Architectural Drawing by Setter, Leach, and Lindstrom, Inc.

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2016 Murray County Historical Society