(Clinton KY, July 22, 2013) - Homeless but far from hopeless, the Hickman County Historical & Genealogical Society has finally found a place to call home.
In February, the Historical Society’s building collapsed due to bad weather and old age, leaving only a mound of debris and broken spirits. The 150 year old building had been occupied by the Hickman County Historical Society for the last ten years. Stored inside were more than 100,000 records, books, maps and other historical documents essential to our county’s past.
With help of the community, about 90% of the documents were salvaged from the rubbish and stored in the City of Clinton’s Maintenance building just down the road from their old location. While appreciative of the volunteered location provided, th
e organization was aware that this was only a temporary solution.
After much searching and deliberation the Hickman County Historical & Genealogical Society decided to purchase the Hickman County Farm Bureau building located on North Washington Street in Clinton, Kentucky. On July 19, 2013 the president and secretary of both organizations met and signed a contract of purchase making it official.
Historical Society President Ivan Potter explained the steps being taken in preparation of the move as: “Clean, sort, tag and identify. We have an assembly line of volunteers where we take every single item and clean it from rocks and dirt, then we sort them into categories. After they are sorted we record what information is available and we take pictures of it to be scanned into the computer.”
He went on to say, “This process is an experiment that we hope will have great promise. We are trying to digitize history, which has never really been done in Hickman County.”
Every Tuesday for the last month, Potter along with LaDonna Latham, Norma Humphries, and George Pickard and other volunteers spend around four hours going through the documents. It has been a very long process for them and there is still much more to be done. Potter hopes that once school starts, students who are required to put in community service hours will take advantage of the opportunity to pitch in.
An exact date has yet to be determined as to when the Historical Society will be completely moved into the new location. However, Farm Bureau has been working with the society allowing them to start moving their stuff into the back of the building.
Potter and the Historical Society will be celebrating their 30th anniversary this fall and hope to have an open house celebration for the occasion. The Farm Bureau will be relocating to the previously known Grogan’s Building located across from the First United Methodist Church in Clinton. Renovations of their building will begin in the near future.
If you would like to volunteer to help the Historical Society clean or move, please contact Ivan Potter at 270-207-8744. The Society is very thankful for their support over the last year and look forward to starting this new chapter in book of history in Hickman County.
