5 Years of Progress with the Heritage Center

What were the top goals of the levy passing in 2017?

The Heritage Center was in a dire situation in 2017, both physically and financially. The Heritage Center was originally built as Springfield’s municipal building. It is a 50 ft x 462 ft, 56,000 sq. ft. brick and stone building from 1890. It is not only tough to preserve such a large historic building, but can also take quite a lot to maintain!

For example, our electricity bill was $93,000 in 2019–that’s averaging $7,700 a month! The original levy passing in 2017 was a huge relief to the Clark County Historical Society because Clark Countians voted to help us take care of the building. It really spoke volumes to how much our county values its history.

Our top goals after the levy passed were to tackle some major capital projects we simply didn’t have the funds for, some quality-of-life projects that just needed to get done, as well as annual maintenance costs.

That involved everything from repaving and restriping our parking lot, replacing a 20-year-old HVAC system, replacing gutters, and some operational costs like paying for contracts for elevators, security and fire systems, boilers, insurance premiums, and utility costs inclusive of water, sewer, stormwater, natural gas, and electricity.

What goals were you able to accomplish in the past 5 years?

Quite a lot! Here are just a few…

• Repave and restripe our parking lot.
• Replaced our gutters so that rainwater would be funneled away from the building instead of into it as had been a major problem prior to the passing of the levy in 2017.
• Replaced our HVAC system that had been reaching the end of its 20-year life (to a tune of $270,000). This was an invaluable investment. A good HVAC system is absolutely crucial for preservation: keeping the temperature constant throughout the year slows the decay of artifacts (whereas temperature fluctuations can cause warping, damage, and mold growth).

What goals did you not reach and what is your plan for achieving them?

The pandemic–or, specifically, the supply chain disruptions and inflation–really made accomplishing some of our goals difficult. We hit all of our goals except for our promise to update our elevators, which are over 20 years old, but we couldn’t get the actual materials for the elevators themselves. Right now, we’ve contracted out for those elevators and we’ve put money down for those materials, but we’re still waiting on those materials to physically come in before we can start replacing those elevators.

How has the Heritage Center positively impacted the community in the past 5 years?

Our motto at the Heritage Center is that we’re more than a museum. It’s become our catchphrase because we’re passionate about partnering with our local community. For example, for Black History Month, we partnered with the Gammon House and The Links Incorporated, Inc. to put up an exhibit that focuses on local black history from the mid-19th century to the present.

We also partnered with the Springfield Promise Neighborhood where we shared artifacts and information about local black history for their Black Excellence program for middle schoolers.

We are also one of the hosts for the Springfield Arts Council’s Downtown Sounds series, which brings local musicians and their audiences to different locations around town. Clark County has a rich musical history (of which John Legend is perhaps the most contemporary and the most famous) and we love to host these events where the present meets the past.

You can also catch us out and about the Clark County Fair–we typically bring some agricultural and automotive artifacts for people to see. This year, we’ll be at the Clark County Fairgrounds for the International Harvester 33rd Annual Red Power Round-Up because our very own museum has a large collection from that company dating back to the early 20th century.

In many ways, the pandemic had a huge impact on our day-to-day interactions. We had closed for lockdown out of concern for our guests, our volunteers, and our staff. However, there were some ways in which the Historical Society staff pivoted that we’re really proud of!

Pre-pandemic, our approach was to bring people to the museum for events, new exhibits, and behind-the-scenes tours, but the pandemic made us do a 180 since people couldn’t physically come into the building during the lockdown. We’ve really adapted to meeting people where they are. Now, instead of waiting for an artifact to go on display in order to learn about it, we’re constantly putting more and more of our collections online and specifically on social media. We’ve accepted 657 donations from 2017 to the present with a total sum of 13,345 artifacts!

We’re especially proud of our Wednesday Virtual Program, which is a fun, casual opportunity to take a peek into every aspect of Clark County life throughout the ages. Sometimes we bring on speakers from the community as special guests to chat about their history. For example, our Virtual Program on the history of local firefighting in Clark County featured the current Fire Chief of the Springfield Fire Division as well as other current and retired firefighters from that area.

Other programs are gamified, where we use Jeopardy-style or Quizzo-style formats to learn more about a local topic. Still, others are open forums, where we invite our attendees to speak freely about their local history. Examples of this would include our Virtual Program in memory of local magician and police officer Hermann Carr, where his children and others shared fond memories of his career and his legacy.

Summer Sky is one of our beloved events that has an immediate, tangible impact on the community. We partner with the Clark County Department of Job and Family Services to provide underprivileged children with school supplies at the start of the year. Summer Sky itself is a fun event that takes place outside the Heritage Center, featuring games, animals and creepy crawlies from Glen Helen, magic shows, and more.

What are the top event highlights from the past 5 years hosted by the Heritage Center?

Our Junior Wizards’ Academy and Wizards’ Ball have been so well received from the public. Although we had to go virtual for the past two years, we’re excited to look to in-person events as our COVID numbers decline. We believe there’s a little magic in learning local history.

Also, we’d like to mention our Adventure at the Museum Kids programming. Families had arts & crafts. They could pick up ready-made kits handed out at a table at the Market. They can also take a tour of a section of the museum that we were learning about that day.