Lost: Gone but not Forgotten...
...a look at businesses and industry of the past
May 19-Nov. 20, 2006
This summer we are inviting our visitors to get Lost in History. The sights and sounds of our 1890s Railroad Town will transport you back to a summer long ago. Be careful, because somewhere between the Sarsaparilla from the Silver Dollar, asking your sweetie to dance the night away out at It’s a Cowboy’s Life, and watching your child don a prairie dress for her summer school class, you and your family will get Lost in History. Yet there remains one more "time warp" on the grounds of the Stuhr Museum that we are all sure will grab you and suck you into the past.
From May 19 - November 20 in the Main Gallery of the Stuhr Building, the exhibit, "Lost: Gone but not Forgotten" will introduce you to the businesses that once powered the economy of Hall County but are only memories now. Images of buildings and workers in industries that were a large part of Hall County will whisper to you of lost arts and knowledge. Pictures of women working in one of the numerous cigar factories that graced the streets of Grand Island at the turn of the century will show you that women didn't have to be a teacher or a nurse to work outside the home. A cigar rolling table and tools that may have come from Brandt Cigar Company recreate the buzzing interior of one of these lost factories.
Hall County citizens not only worked at businesses and industries that no longer are around, they invented products that only belong to history. Learn about inventor Dora Kolbeck and see examples of her patented material plaiter. Other patented inventions, like a tire wrapper and a fire escape parachute, came directly from the creativity of Hall County citizens. Information, some of the actual patented inventions, illustrations of the inventions and images of the inventors will give you a sense of the spirit of these 'lost' ideas.
Lacy Hall will be transformed into a forgotten Hall of the Future. Everyone loves to guess at what the future will be like, so we have created an exhibit that tries to re-create what the people of the past were marveling about in their own time. Step through the carnival-like entrance and see what "modern technology” was at the turn of the last century. One wall in Lacy Hall even compares the pieces of the old to their counterparts of today so you can see how much design, function and price has changed!
So, come on out to the Stuhr Building as well as the rest of the grounds to get Lost in History this summer. It will be the first time you have had fun getting lost!
Regular admission
fees apply. Stuhr Museum and Hastings Museum members admitted
free! For questions, call the Stuhr Museum at 308-385-5316 or
log onto www.stuhrmuseum.org.
Related Articles:
Lost industries recalled at Stuhr Museum
BY CONNING CHU, WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Wednesday, May 31, 2006, Omaha World Herald
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Black-and-white photographs of men in suspenders and puffy sleeves hunched over cigar-making machines depict one of the lost businesses that used to call Hall County home.
The photographs are part of a collection of artifacts and photos in a new exhibit, "Lost: Gone But Not Forgotten," at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer.
The look at about a dozen now-gone businesses, spanning the years 1850 to 1920, will be on display through Nov. 20.
"Some of these businesses disappeared because of technology and the way they made things just became outdated," said Joe Black, museum executive director.
Black said businesses then faced the same pressures as businesses today - producing the best quality products at the lowest possible prices and competing for consumers during a time of rapid technological growth.
"It is nice to know that people went through the same thing as us," Black said. "These pressures are universal."
Peggy Bopp of Daytona Beach, Fla., visiting the museum during a recent road trip, said she related to the early entrepreneurs.
"As you go through and stop and see these kinds of things, you can connect," she said. "You really relate to the things they went through."
Black said it is important to look at the successes and failures of past companies for lessons on how to survive and adapt to technology.
He pointed to Oxnard Sugar Beet Factory, which saw sales drop after sugar cane became a better source of sugar.
"Sugar beets were not as potent, and less farmers were growing sugar beets," Black said. "They were getting replaced by sugar canes, so they had to modernize."
He said the sugar beet factory that was started in 1890 managed to stay open until 1960 by using innovative machinery to extract sugar from beets.
Local breweries had to change their product to stay open, and many began to bottle nonalcoholic beverages during Prohibition. That kept them in business until after the nation's ban on alcohol was repealed.
Other businesses were not as resilient. The nine Hall County cigar factories, for example, went out of business as the demand for cigarettes rose.
Former Hall County resident Dora S. Kolbeck, who owned a dressmaking shop, struggled to stay in business but remained competitive by inventing and patenting a plaiter, a tool used to put pleats in fabric used for sewing and decoration.
Although the companies may be gone and the inventions outdated, their innovation helped lay the foundation for some of today's businesses, Black said. "Just because they aren't around doesn't mean they weren't very influential."
The display doesn't include all Hall County businesses that have disappeared, Black said.
"There's this heritage that is on the verge of being lost. What I hope that the people of Nebraska get out of this is to learn to understand the fullness and richness of their community."
Debbie Slechta of Bennington said learning about bygone inventions gave her a new appreciation for today's luxuries, such as the modern sewing machines and dressmaking tools that evolved from Kolbeck's plaiter.
"It's kind of neat to see what our grandparents and relatives started out with," she said. "We have it so easy now."
