Colfax Historical Society
The Jan. 20 meeting of the Colfax Historical Society was called to order at 7:01 p.m. by president Kevin Williams. Members present were: Kevin and BJ Williams, Larry and Charlet Daft, Aaron Bartholmey, Peggy Dvorak, Stan Daft, Chris and Tranquility Smith, Steve and Cindy L. Van Dusseldorp.
Minutes for the Nov. 18 meeting were read and approved. There was no meeting in December. Treasurer’s report presented. Aaron also presented an annual report for 2024. He said the 2024 financial records are ready to be audited. Peggy and Cindy L. are the auditing committee so they will do that.
Correspondence – Peggy read a thank you from Main Street for our participation in Colfax Country Christmas.
Guests – We welcomed three guests to our meeting – Joe Otto, Malachi Williams and Josh Williams. They came to discuss an idea Malachi has for his Eagle Scout project. He proposed the possibility of repairing/rebuilding our log cabin. We discussed and general opinion was very favorable. He’ll do further research and we’ll try to help with that. They’ll attend a future meeting. Plans to burn the cabin were put on hold for now.
Doug Wilson looked at the light over the door in the new addition. There is no switch to turn that light on and off so it’s on all the time unless the bulb burns out. Due to the cost to redo the wiring, it was decided to leave it as is.
Tranquility presented the facility manager’s report and an annual report for 2024. The total we received for rentals in 2024 was about the same as 2023.
Chris continues to work on the security system and cameras.
Larry Daft reported on the Christmas event we had in December. Attendance was low due to such bad weather but people who came had a good time. Larry said the response from our members to support and work at this was really great. Cindy L. reported on our participation in Colfax Country Christmas again this year. Cindy, Steve and Joyce helped with that. We also participated in the Jasper County Museum’s Christmas tree event once again. Peggy, Steve, Cindy and Larry H. helped with that. Thanks to everyone who helped with all the Christmas events we participated in this year.
Kevin has price quotes for printing the booklets for our gift shop. We would have to raise the selling price a lot. We discussed getting an electronic version of the booklet and maybe print it ourselves. Tabled this for now.
Larry D. discussed having another presentation. He talked to Dave Baker (who did Ghost Towns of Jasper County for us) about other presentations he does. They include the Civil War, medicine back in the day and coal mines. Emphasis on Jasper County would be desirable. Looking at possibly this summer. Maybe possibly consider partnering with the library again if they are interested.
Discussed getting business cards with address and phone numbers for the building and also the phone number for the building manager. We decided we should probably have some. Tranquility can give them to renters and we can have them available at the building also. Aaron will mock up a card and report at the next meeting.
We will be open the second Saturday of the month, Feb. 8 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Larry and Charlet volunteered from 10 a.m. to noon. We still need volunteers for noon to 2 p.m. Admission is free.
Meeting adjourned 8:47 p.m.