EVERY COMMUNITY NEEDS a Janis Ray and a team of equally enthusiastic volunteers.
Janis Ray at her desk in a former classroom turned office space.
“We’re the keeper of the history,” says 86-year-old Janis, former educator and a current director/gambling manager of the West Concord Historical Society.
The 1902/1914 school is on the left, the 1936 gym on the right. Museum left, community center right. To enter, use the door between the buildings, in the area where the red car is parked in this photo. The school closed in 1991.
My husband and I met Janis recently while on a meandering day trip to several small towns in southeastern Minnesota. In West Concord, population hovering near 800, we happened upon the historical society and community center housed in an old school. After the school closed in 1991, the WCHS purchased the 1902/1914 building and the attached 1936 gym for $1, saving the complex from planned demolition. Several years later, the museum opened in this hulk of a multi-story brick building, the kind that can never be replaced in character and visual strength by a new facility.
A West Concord Centennial poster hangs in a hallway outside the research room.
I appreciate this museum, this building, even though I have no personal connection to the West Concord area.
Clothing and more of yesteryear grace The Heritage Room.
Beautiful handmade quilts are displayed.
The Veterans Room honors local men and women who served their country.
This structure houses not only local history, but everyone’s history. Or at least everyone who grew up in rural Minnesota. I delighted in room after former classroom themed to topics like veterans, fashion, farmers and merchants, education, the 1950s and 60s, heritage and more. Even hallways hold small town rural treasures.
Pull-down maps like this one of Minnesota remain in some classrooms.
Reminders of the building’s former use linger in blackboards, globes, pull-down maps and the “Principal’s Office” sign above The Farmers & Merchant Room doorway. You can almost hear students slamming locker doors and shuffling across worn wood floors.
The roof of the aged school is topped with this unique architectural structure.
I know I missed a lot simply because we arrived too late to study the three stories of collections in detail. The place closes at noon Saturdays and Janis was gracious enough to let us stay a bit past closing. Yet I left impressed. This is one of the finest small town museums I’ve ever toured.
A drawing of the 1902 school hangs in a hallway.
And, Janis will tell you, the largest in the area. She is proud of what this community has created. She graduated from this school and taught elementary school students here for 36 years. Her roots run deep.
Admission cost is a suggested $4 or a donation.
Perhaps that is what appeals to me—that personal connectedness spawning passion unquelled. You can’t match small town enthusiasm that brings locals like Janis here to volunteer 25 hours a week. She manages the liquor store pulltab fundraising which brings in $10K-$12K yearly to help meet annual historical society expenses of around $70K. Membership (there are 260 members from 24 states) and donations provide the remaining bulk of financial support. There’s no paid staff.
The museum includes The Cardinal Room filled with West Concord High School activity memorabilia.
Janis is serious about this business of keeping the history. She delights in young people coming here with their parents or grandparents, generations passing along the histories of this community and building to another generation.
The museum feels living room comfortable. This 1950s living room staged in The 50’s and 60’s Room includes the first TV (a 1950 model on the left in this photo) sold in West Concord.
I felt at ease here, unencumbered by rules. Photography is allowed. You can meander among the exhibits; no ropes or half-walls fence you out. There’s a certain comfortableness that prevails, as if everything here belongs to you, even when it doesn’t. But perhaps it does.
There’s even a room to do research.
FYI: The museum is open from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. weekdays and from 10 a.m. – noon Saturdays. Or call 507-527-2628 for an appointment. The museum is located at 600 West First Street, a block west of Highway 56 at the intersection with Olive Street. Click here to reach the WCHS website.
I will showcase the museum in two more posts because I have way too many images for a single story. And then I’ll take you into the West Concord High School gym built as a WPA project in 1936. It’s a treasure, too.
© Copyright 2015 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
I do hope there are more quilt photos!!!! School buildings seem to be just the perfect setting for museums/historical centers! I look forward to seeing the rest of your visit!! There is, also, such a place in Hot Springs,SD, which utilizes the old elementary/high learning building. The “ambiance” is wonderful and can be felt…………..
I knew you would get excited about the quilt photo. No, I’m not including more quilt images because I have way too many to duplicate on quilts. I’m sorry. You’ll have to take a road trip sometime to West Concord.
Hanley Falls in southwestern Minnesota also has a fantastic museum, the Minnesota Machinery Museum, in a former school building like this. Here’s the linkhttp://www.mnmachinerymuseum.com/:
Oh well, it was worth a “shot”!!! Yes, we will have to check it out!!!
Wonderful! I love these museums. A couple years ago, we visited the Dodge County Museum in Mantorville where my wife found an old county map that identified the local farms and who owned them. It is quite something to see your family’s name on a 150 year old map.
Now that was one sweet discovery in Mantorville, another gem of an historic small southeastern Minnesota town.
Thank you for the walking tour of the museum… your photos really gave us a taste of the area history. I particularly loved the angle of the image taken in the Veterans Room. You have an eye for tastefully photographing these types of tours.
Thank you. I try to show overall and close-up images in these tours and then pair them with fitting words.
It would take a month worth of posts to thoroughly present the content of this outstanding museum.
I was wondering if that was a school in the background of the other post. What a wonderful way to display the area history and save the school. Can’t wait to see the rest.
You guessed right. More photos coming tomorrow.
Fabulous post and history lesson today of a sweet place, Thanks for introducing us to Janis–she really appears to be an amazing woman who wants to help preserve the history of this place. I love the Cardinal room ….maybe because it is red?
Janis is absolutely devoted to serving the Historical Society and preserving history. Truly, as you say, an amazing woman.
I promise you more photos from The Cardinal Room.
What a Great Museum – love that living room – thanks so much for sharing – important to retain history, especially the people, the culture (that moment in time), the community, etc. 🙂 Happy Day!
Wait until you see more of what this museum offers. You would love it.
It would be fun to go visit here and walk the same halls my mom did when she was a student here. Ive driven by many times, but next time I think I need to go INSIDE and check it out. I like how you can walk through the exhibits with no ropes keeping you out. Very cool post Audrey 🙂
Oh, yes, Jackie, you MUST tour this museum. And take your mom with you.
What a lovely tour. The old school building is gorgeous – they don’t make them like they used to! I love the old TV room – it really took me back to the 60’s. And I’d love one of those high school jackets – we don’t have those here but we’ve seen them in movies like Mr Holland’s Opus xx
Wait until I show you the gymnasium.
Mom tells me today that she had “Ms Ray” for a teacher in a little one room school house in the country. Cool facts 🙂
Oh, wow. I bet your mom is in one of the photos hanging in The Mary Delzer Room, which is the room focusing on education. Janis Ray specifically showed me a photo of her with her students at a nearby country school.
Hi Audrey,
I grew up in West Concord & played lots of basketball on that court. I love your talented eye for bringing the
beauty of rural settings alive.
Have lived in New York City for many years but the old saying that “you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy” is a fact.
West Concord will always be my home and I couldn’t have asked for a better child and young adulthood.
At the age of 86 I look at your rural photos and, in my mind’s eye, I can still picture myself somewhere in the
scene, having the time of my life.
Thank you for all your good work.
Bill
Bill, welcome back home from NYC via Minnesota Prairie Roots. I love showcasing rural Minnesota and am delighted when my photos and writing connect with readers like you who value this place I love.
I want to know how/why you ended up in NYC.
Well, Audrey, I graduated from St. Olaf College in June of 1951 and the Korean war was almost 1 year old. I went into Air Force pilot training a couple weeks later and when I was mustered out at the end of the conflict I was hired by TWA (Trans World Airlines). I flew out of New York for most of my 33 years with the company.
While I like (not love) living in this bustling, noisy, dirty, crowded & wonderful city I still miss the attitudes & sensibilities of the people around whom I grew up. When I see your marvelous photos, they evoke such
powerful memories: I am quite geographically centered and I guess that’s what touches me when
I look at your photos. Wish you could see the smile on my face when I see the snow drifting across
highway 14; I can almost hear the wind.
Thank you again for “bringing me back home”.
All the best,
Bill
Thanks for sharing the story of how you, a West Concord boy, ended up in New York City.
Interesting you should mention Highway 14 because I traveled that road last weekend back to the prairie and will have some on-the-road images to show you in a forthcoming post. Look and listen and you may hear the wind.
Welcome to Minnesota Prairie Roots, Bill. I’m delighted to have you among my readers.
[…] Part I: Keeping The History In West Concord (Minnesota Prairie […]
Hi Audrey, I lost track of you for a while, busy with church library volunteering and grandchildren. I was visiting in WC last summer and we roamed through the library two different days.
I attended 1 – 5th. grade at W.C. Then a few weeks in 1956, before being transferred to Pine Island H.S. because I wasn’t living in the W.C. school district. My relative, Carl Raddatz was on the school board, during the week I was living with his family, on weekends I lived with my maternal grandmother Rose Zeller Shelton. She was in P.I. school district. I attended 3 high schools that year, really put me behind and I never really caught up.
Both of my parents (Robert L. Campbell and Olive A. Shelton Campbell) graduated from WC, as well as several aunts and an uncle.
You’ve done an amazing job with photographs, keep up the good work.
Good to have you back, Donna.