New alliance brings Crawford County history groups together

Crawford County has no shortage of organizations devoted to preserving local history.

Bucyrus, Galion, Crestline and New Washington all have historical societies. There are groups dedicated to preserving railroad depots or specific buildings; even the Lincoln Highway Association has a regional chapter.

But with each group focusing on its part of the story, no one was looking at the history of the county as a whole.

That's one of several goals for the new Crawford County Historical Alliance, which formed earlier this year, explained Amber Wertman, board president of the Galion History Center and one of the driving forces behind creation of the new alliance.

"We can't all be siloed because we share this history. We're all so closely linked, it just makes sense if we're really going to promote it," she said.

Each historical group will maintain its separate identity, members stressed, but the county alliance is a way to achieve shared goals.

"It gives all of the historical societies of the county an opportunity to sort of share ideas, funds, problems, whatever, with one another," said John Kurtz, president of the Bucyrus Historical Society. "That's the primary purpose of the whole thing — so that we can share what's going on in each individual society face to face with one another. And also try to solve problems better. Four or five heads are better than one."

'More interest on a wider scale'

A year ago this month, the Galion Historical Society rebranded itself as the Galion History Center. In discussions following that decision, Wertman said, she and Executive Director Tanesha Pickering discussed long-range planning.

"We had just done a strategic plan with the board, and yeah, we have some short-term goals, but what about five, 10 years from now? Like, what does that look like? And we started talking about who's going to keep that history, right? Keeper of the keys," Wertman said. Preserving old buildings requires a lot of maintenance, time and money, and for the most part, board members of Crawford County history organizations tend to be older.

"So it was like, how do we get more interest on a wider scale, have a greater awareness throughout the whole county that look, we all have this rich history, it connects together and we're all working together to kind of elevate that," Wertman said.

They decided to take the lead in organizing a county-wide group that would tackle that problem, and scheduled a January meeting at the Crestline Public Library. About 15 people attended, Wertman said. They stressed from the outset that their group wasn't seeking to take over the others.

"People can be territorial, but I was pleasantly surprised once we aired that all out," she said. "Everybody was like, 'OK, this can be a beneficial thing for all of us, and maybe more long-term projects can come out of it.'"

Kurtz said that initially, he was concerned the goal was to merge the individual societies into one big county-wide society. "That I don't think is the case," he said.

A Crawford County Historical Society existed years ago, but he said he prefers to see each individual society have a specific area to focus on, as opposed to trying to cover the whole county.

"Hopefully it will bear fruit. We'll see," Kurtz said.

At least 15 people have attended each of the last two meetings. Representatives of historical societies in New Washington, Galion, Crestline and Bucyrus have attended, plus Preserving Galion, Inc., which maintains Galion's Gill House; Friends of the Big Four Depot; and the Bucyrus Preservation Society, which maintains the Toledo and Ohio Central Depot. A representative of the Mid-Ohio Chapter of the Ohio Lincoln Highway League has attended, too. The quarterly meetings are open to "really anybody who's with a board that has to do with history," Wertman said.

"I think the more voices at the table, the better," she said.

Restoring monument was group's first project

Joe Bloom, who has been active in the New Washington Historical Society since it started in 1985, said he welcomes having a group that considers the county as a whole.

After all, not many organizations do that, he said. "The only two I can think of are the landfill and the dog kennel. Everything else is separate," he said.

Crawford County's bicentennial in 2020 passed almost unremarked, he pointed out. "They didn't do a thing. It was sad.," Bloom said.

There are monuments in rural parts of the county that have not been cleaned up or preserved at all, Wertman said.

During a history alliance brainstorming session, someone pointed out that the Colonel William Crawford monument in Leesville needed some attention, she said.

"Historical societies, they only care about basically to their border and then if something happens across the way, they could care less, and this thing was across the way," Bloom said.

The member organizations chipped in to have it cleaned — "an easily achieved starter project," Wertman said.

The original monument was dedicated in 1928 to Revolutionary War Colonel William Crawford, who was captured near that spot during an expedition at the request of General George Washington to quell the British and their allied local Indians in 1782, according to a news release from the alliance. That monument, erected in 1927, was replaced with the current white marble monument in 1961 by the Crestline Kiwanis Club. Early this summer, Longstreth Memorials cleaned the moss and grime from the monument and applied a new treatment that slowly whitens the surfaces without damaging the marble.

"It was a good way to show that we all have a shared passion and we want to preserve and promote our shared history," she said. "Because it does benefit all of us."

Programs, shared staffing among possibilities

Other joint projects are in the works, Wertman said. Members have discussed a possible collaboration on Veterans Day.

"Our vision was that the alliance would first and foremost be to share leading practices, brainstorm ideas for preservation and promotion, obviously share any connected heritage that we all have," she said. "All of our cities were founded around the same time and so things overlap. And then our long-term plan for the history alliance would be possibly collaborating even more on actual projects, on services from time to time ...

"And then maybe even eventually, long-term, would be the potential of sharing staff for things, maybe even having a county-wide fundraising project."

Kurtz said he's optimistic about the alliance's potential.

"I think it's a good idea that will probably bear some fruit over time," he said. "We don't meet that often, but that's not a problem, either — we don't want to have something that's a burden on the various societies. I think definitely it's a good idea."

He's interested in the idea of shared staffing — the Bucyrus Historical Society currently does not have a curator.

"That's another thing we're hoping to get out of this alliance," Kurtz said. "There's a possibility anyway that one or two or more of the various historical societies may share a curator at some point in time — a paid curator. This is the problem, to find someone who's available, first of all, and is interested in the job as curator and who won't charge an arm and a leg, because we can't afford that. And we haven't been able to find anybody who's willing to volunteer for the job over here."

Members also have found that sometimes one museum will receive a donation that might fit in better with another group's collection, Wertman said.

"We also feel like all of us are a large part of the tourism and quality of life and recreation in this county, so it's very important that we preserve and promote all of our buildings and all of the items we have on a larger scale to bring awareness," she said.

ggoble@gannett.com

419-559-7263

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Crawford County History Alliance unites groups from across county