Museum Newsletter - 5 Jan 2009

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-Newsletter
January 5, 2009, (Volume 5, Number 1)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>> We will be on "State of Affairs" radio show January 9.

Our local Louisville Public Radio station, WFPL FM 89.3, produces a show called "State of Affairs." This very nice show discusses topics of widely-varied interests, focusing on one topic each weekday from 11:00 a.m. to noon. I am very happy to report that Bullitt County and its history will be featured on the January 9 show.

Our webmaster, Charles Hartley, and I have been invited to be the guests.

The hour-long show is live, and accepts calls, so I am both nervous and excited about this opportunity to promote our wonderful county.

Tune in if you can. Call or e-mail if you want. (I could use the encouragement!)

For those of you outside the local broadcast area, the show is available via internet, so I'd especially love for some of you from outside Kentucky to call in (and praise our work!).

Details: "State of Affairs" on Louisville radio FM 89.3; January 9, 2008; 11:00 a.m. to Noon, Eastern Standard Time.

The show can also be heard through Internet streaming from the website, www.WFPL.org or through Twitter@soatalk.

Call-in comments and questions can be made during the show toll-free at 1-877-814-TALK, or E-mail soa@wfpl.org .

Just be kind. Charles and I are new to this!

The show is recorded and replayed at nine that night. Wish us luck!

>> Reminder. E-Mail Address Changing.

I had hoped to have this done by now, but some technical difficulties have delayed the final change. This old personal address that I have been using for this newsletter (David_Lee_St@msn.com) will be going away in a few weeks. My new address is DavidStrange@Windstream.net. Please make a note of the change in your address book. My old address will remain active while I transition to the new address, but with good luck, the next newsletter you will receive will be from my new address, so be sure to set that as a safe address on your e-mail, lest your system block future newsletters thinking it to be spam. All of the BullittCountyHistory.org addresses will remain.

>> No January meeting of Genealogical Society.

The Bullitt County Genealogical Society does not meet in January. The next meeting will be February 21. Details in next months' newsletter.

Activity...

Well, I intended to use some of the holidays to catch up a bit on all our projects. Umm. Didn't happen. So there's still plenty to do!

We will be taking down the holiday decorations this week, and trying to make some plans to mark the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth in February. I also still intend to make some major changes in our displays, but haven't gotten to it yet. What's the phrase? "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"?

Meanwhile...

>> Two new books have been donated to our museum collection. One is "South Pacific at Seventeen" by James Richard Snellen. Jim Snellen, originally of Bullitt County but now living in St. Johns, Florida, donated his book about his experiences in WWII on the USS Cofer. In the book, Mr. Snellen also talks about his home on Weaver's Run Creek and his early life in Bullitt County. The other book, "St. Patrick Catholic Church history and records, Stithton, Hardin County, Ky 1831-1920" by Mary Olson, was donated by museum Volunteer Bob Cline.

>> New worker at museum.

I am happy to report a new addition to our staff at the museum. Jose' Rosario, retired from the military as a top-ranked NCO after over 25 years service. He then spent a few years working in Elizabethtown with the Social Security Administration. Jose' will be spending about 18 hours a week at the museum as part of a government "Experience Works" program that we are trying out. Jose' should be a real help to us. I look forward to learning a lot from him as he learns from us.

For Your Information...

>>New State Cemetery Database.

The Kentucky Historical Society's Cemetery Preservation Program has completed the inclusion of its database on the Society's Digital Collections Catalog. Now, visitors to the Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) Web site will have access to information on over eleven thousand cemeteries in the state. This database is a continuation of work begun by the Kentucky Attorney General's 2001 Cemetery Task Force to develop a comprehensive survey of all cemeteries and burial sites in the state. Seven years in the making, the database contains basic information about cemeteries in the commonwealth, including many names and addresses of the burial sites, the names of people of historical interest that are buried at the cemeteries, and much more. The database can be accessed through the KHS Digital Collections Catalog. This is a good resource for state-wide information. For more detail on Bullitt County sites, see our own web site, along with files at the museum.

>>1930s WPA Photos.

If you love photography, you'll enjoy these old WPA photos. Kodachrome film had a few problems at birth, but within a year or two became the premier color film of all time. Nothing has ever surpassed it for resolution and archival qualities. Sadly, it has essentially died out and only one lab in the world will still process it, and then only 35mm. The WPA was a good thing for America at the time, and because they paid professional photographers to document the program, we have a legacy of photographs, many in color, that realistically documented that period in our history. Check out https://www.openmyeyeslord.net/ALookBackInHistory.htm . Be warned that this can be a rather long download.

>>With the Lincoln 200th anniversary coming up, here's a bit of trivia for you. Careful, it's a trick question! What is the most familiar Lincoln memorial?

It is the Lincoln penny. Over 289 billion have been made and used over the past century.

Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809 in Hardin County (now Larue County. Larue was divided out of Hardin some years later). Though Lincoln and his family were close to Bullitt County, I have no information actually ever placing them here. If you know of any connection of Lincoln to Bullitt County, please let me know. All I have is that the original road bridge at Shepherdsville across the Salt River was named the "Lincoln Pike" Bridge.

Finally... Starting Our Fifth Year.

I can hardly believe it. This new year of 2009 will mark our fifth year of the museum. Back in October 2004, we were still scratching up a few things for our first simple displays. Thanks to Ken Bailey, a few used-but-still-good display cases were donated to us, and we were on our way. I am not sure any of us knew what success we might have. We were just confident in the good purpose of our cause, and the possibilities of what could be achieved. Thanks to the great rooms provided by county government, and donations from good people like you, we were on our way.

In just these few short years, our little museum has blossomed into a bright flower, recognized statewide for our innovation and the creative efforts to fulfill our mission (always shown at the top of these newsletters). Indeed, a wall in our research room is beginning to fill with plaques and certificates marking a growing list of awards.

Today, we have so many projects going on that it is sometimes tough to just keep track of them. We "complain" about our "Hundred Item List" of things yet to do, but our energetic group of creative volunteers are always coming up with even more new ideas....new projects that we can do.

Here's to 2009 and the next five years after that! With good people like you supporting the Bullitt County History Museum, who knows what will come next!

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org
BullittCountyHistory.org