Pinckneyville Cuts Ribbon on New Rural Heritage Museum
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A donated 1890s horse-drawn John Deere buggy just beyond the inlaid "Illinois Rural Heritage Museum" terrazzo floor logo is only the beginning of a stunning new museum in Pinckneyville, Ill.
The ribbon was cut on the project Tuesday, and at the outset visitors are getting only a snapshot of a much larger museum being built in two phases. The museum's signature Red Horse Barn was open briefly during the recent summer Thresherman's Show and will be open again during the Mardi Gras Festival the end of October. Two larger buildings will wrap around the Red Horse Barn entrance.
The museum should largely be completed after the first of the year. The work to add displays will be ongoing.
Horses were the source of power for farming during the late 1800s and those displays complement the nearby fairgrounds home to the American Thresherman Association. In the horse barn, tickets will be sold and a souvenir shop will be located in the old grainery. The tack for the horses, old horse drawn wagons and horse powered equipment will create the atmosphere and will provide a benchmark for measuring the progress to be viewed in later exhibits.
The lobby of the museum entrance will contain a map of the four acre museum site and will illustrate the locations of the farmhouse, repair shop, school house and equipment and machinery displays. The lobby can also double as a meeting room, provide viewing of films and serve as the entrance to the administrative offices of the museum.
The farmhouse display will be viewed from a roped-off area and will consist of the kitchen/pantry, parlor and bedrooms. The furnishings will be authentic for the period down to the calendar and pictures on the walls. The stoves, used for heating and cooking, lamps used for lighting, and systems for providing water should be of special interest to those accustomed to today's modern conveniences. Methods of storing and preserving meats and canned fruit and vegetables will also bring back memories for some.
Since all farm children "walked five miles to school, uphill both ways", a one room school house is an essential part of the rural experience. Children of today are struck by the primitive tools that were used to educate their counterparts in the early 1900s. Eight grades in one room, hand me down textbooks and pot belly stoves for heat were hardships by today's standards.
The highlight of the museum will be, of course, machinery and equipment displays. Steam engines, threshing machines, plows, saw mills and the earliest of tractors will be on display. All displays will have a full explanation of the equipment, how it was used, its place in the evolution of farm equipment and the individual who permitted the equipment use.
When completed, the museum will encompass 22,000 square feet in two buildings. The Horse Barn entrance building is 2,430 feet and was donated by Morton Buildings.
"The museum will tell the story of the progression of life in rural America," said Charlie Greer, who had the vision for this project. Greer said he is excited about the involvement of Case IH and Monsanto, companies that made major contributions to the evolution of agriculture.
The startup money for the museum came from private donations and a state grant that is being shard with the Illinois High School Basketball Hall of Fame. The Foundation for Pinckneville bought the site and is leasing it to the museum. Greer admits that more dollars are needed.
The buildings to fill are huge, but so is the heritage that will fill it.