City donates $2,000 to Illinois Rural Heritage Museum

Mayor August Kellerman asked the City Council to consider doubling the requested $1,000 donation to the Illinois Rural Heritage Museum. The council agreed and voted to give IRHM $2,000 to help with advertising in the coming year.

Mayor Kellerman said the city did not donate anything to IRHM last year and the museum spent over $2,000 on advertising.

Museum founder Charlie Greer said that the museum is gaining traffic.

"It takes five or six years to get established," Greer told the council. "We're gaining."

Greer added IRHM has regular contact with other museums in the region. They learn a lot from them.

The Illinois Rural Heritage Museum is open over 200 days a year.

Currently, Greer and his wife on looking for information on kerosene street lamps that were once in use in Pinckneyville.

The well-preserved lamp is on loan from a local family. It was located in an attic and had a letter inside that said it was one of six kerosene street lamps that were once in use in Pinckneyville. There were four at the square-- one on each corner, one at the train depot and one across from the library.

Greer has been searching local records to find when they were in use. He suspects it was in the early part of the 19th century.

Anyone with information on the kerosene street lamps is asked to call the Illinois Rural Heritage Museum at (618)357-8908 or Mary Greer at (618)571-1854.

In other business, the council:

• authorized Mayor Kellerman to execute a Southern Illinois Electricity Aggregation Consortium Municipality Power of Attorney. Pinckneyville is one of 38 municipalities in the consortium which receives a discount rate on electricity.

• heard from Commissioner David Stone that a temporary patch will be placed on Walnut Street where the utility work was done recently as soon as it is warm enough. The contractor who completed the work will make permanent repairs later