The year 2011 ended with a few additional items being donated to the Millinocket Historical Society museum. One was a union card from the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers. This card of Eric P. Bouchard dated 9/1/1951 authorized the check-off of union dues. This was brought to the museum by Sally Bouchard.
Bob Weisskirchen came to the museum with a large GNP calendar from 1958. The collection has several different GNP calendars plus a number from various other businesses.
A complete 2011 collection of the Lincoln News (Katahdin section) is now at the museum.
A book discarded from the Millinocket Memorial Library has been added to the museum for reference. It is the collected works of an itinerant photographer named Isaac Simpson whose early 1900’s glass negatives depicted life in Northern Maine in the early 1900’s. One photograph helped us identify a photo in the museum collection. Labeled as Kimball’s General Store, it appears to have been the early store near the mill before Kimball’s Store opened on Penobscot Avenue. In the photo, there is no readable sign identifying this early business.
A few facts and figures for the end of 2011. This is column number 179. The first few were published in the Katahdin Times, then a few in both the Times and the Lincoln News and finally just the Lincoln News. Thank you for publishing them! Visit the MHS website for information about us. We are also on Facebook and this column also appears there weekly.
The museum was open on 51 days and had 142 visitors not including visits by MHS members. The quest book shows visitors from the New England states plus Idaho, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and New York.
It was a very successful year for donations of items to the museum. Over 430 items came to the collection from 60 different sources with several donors donating multiple times. Plus numerous items (news clippings, advertising items, etc.) were added to our growing reference file.
Volunteers spent many hours at the museum accessioning, cataloging, creating reference files, photographing items, etc. Volunteers also worked many hours at the seventeen yard sales and on other MHS projects. New volunteers are welcome!
***Work continues inside the “new home” at 80 Central Street. Monetary donations toward the building fund are gladly accepted and also may be made in honor of or in memory of someone.
*** 2012 Calendars are still available for $9.00 at the museum on Thursday afternoons or by calling the curator. They are also at Pangburn IGA, Levasseur’s True Value, Millinocket Insurance and Young House. Mail orders may be sent to MHS, PO Box 11, Millinocket, ME 04462. Please include $2.75 SH. Older calendars available at the museum.
***Millinocket by David Duplisea and both of Dorothy Bowler Laverty’s books are available at the museum.
*** Visit the museum Thursdays, 1PM to 3PM in the Millinocket Municipal Building. Use the stairs or elevator. For groups or donations, contact Curator Trudy Wyman, at 723-5477 or www.trudy18@beeline-online.net. Contact the Millinocket Historical Society at P. O. Box 11, on the web at www.millinockethistoricalsociety.org.