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Newsletters > TAHS Projects & How You Can Help
TAHS Projects & How You Can Help

Aug 29, 2011

VOLUNTEERS APPRECIATED: If you could help with any of the following, it would be very helpful and appreciated: Projects:

MAIN STREET BUSINESSES: I need a few volunteers that can go to Morrison Recorder's office OR Clerk's office. At the Recorder's Office, you can follow the owners of the building/property through the years. This does not necessarily tell you what business was in the building, or who ran it. I'm concentrating on the remaining 13 bldgs on Main St. listed on the Nat'l Registry. I have completed two in the Recorder's office.

Clerk's Office: We need to compile a list of business names (we have plats of town w/businesses & old Tornado Newspaper Ads,etc.). The Clerk's office can POSSIBLY tell you who owned/ran the business and what dates. The Clerk's office is not sure when it was mandatory for them to Register their business names.

If you have recollection of any of the businesses along Main Street, please share with the TAHS. It would be helpful if you would write it down, giving as much identifiable information as possible. Name of Business, owner, type of business, physical address (or some way of identifying its location on Main St.). If you have a special memory (ies) of the place, please consider sharing that as well. A good example was one lady remembered living in one of the upstairs apts and said "it was the first place she lived with indoor plumbing"! Here is a link to photos of the buildings in town: https://picasaweb.google.com/TampicoHistoricalSociety/TampicoMainStreetOnNationalRegistry?authuser=0&feat=directlink

CEMETERY PROJECTS:
This is a big one and requires some computer savy. Denise Mickelson has photographed all of St. Mary's Cemetery graves. Ron Sharp, Sr., has photographed all of Tampico Memorial Cemetery. I will be eternally grateful to them for this major undertaking. I am still uploading the photos to our Picasa Album, but that will be completed very soon. (I have been side-tracked with another project with a deadline). Goal is to link the grave photo with the listing on the cemetery index on the TAHS website. Project one: I am in process of revising some of the indexes. Need someone to help upload information to website. Another goal is to acquire all of the obits and link both the obits and the grave photo to the index listing. Need someone to research the Tornado &/or Gazette for our missing obits. Major, major undertaking. But very do-able! I'm still working on the techy part - I'm hoping the indexing can be done offline in a Word or Excel program, so anyone can help with it.

FILING: I don't know how it happens, but I think they breed over night. I need someone upstairs in the Family History Library/Research Center to file, including making file folders.

PHOTO IDENTIFICATION: We have stacks of photos that need to be identified. This is a good project to do simultaneously if you volunteer to be a greeter/tour guide at Historical Society. It's a nice project to do with a buddy in the slow times waiting for visitors. No special skills are needed. If you have lived here most of your life, you could probably help us identify and organize the photos.

CLEANING: If we could get a few volunteers to come in once or twice a month to vacuum, dust, mop bathroom floors (upstairs and down), it would be great! Does anyone do windows? Our front windows of historical building need a good cleaning.

FARM BUILDING: Need someone to coordinate a cleaning crew (including FINDING a cleaning crew - boy scouts, RNA?, Comm. Service, etc.) for our Farm Bldg. It has some very interesting old farm items that we would love to have on display to the public. Terry Gaskill and others have worked on repainting the outside of the building. Now we need the inside cleaned and organized. That building was moved to its current location. It use to be part of the Simpson Powell Lumber Co. a little further south.

VOLUNTEER GREETER/TOUR GUIDE: We would like to have a couple of people on weekends from 10-4p on Sat. & 1-4p on Sunday to greet visitors and show them around the Historical Bldg. This is only through October 31. Then we are closed for season.

If you are interested in helping with any of these projects, PLEASE contact either President Joan Johnson, 815-622-8705 or garyjoan@thewisp.net or myself, Denise McLoughlin, 815-590-2143 or tampicohistoricalsociety@gmail.com You don't have to be a member to help. (But we'd love to have you!)

ARCHIVE MATERIALS: We have been archiving the old Tampico Tornados in archive-safe boxes. We have many loose papers, some in extremely poor condition. We have been putting them in mylar sleeves, to help protect them. We order these through a company named Gaylord. Here is what we usually order:
GAYLORD ARCHIVAL PRODUCTS
http://www.gaylord.com/adblock.asp?abid=5930&search_by=desc&search_for=NS1624&mpc=WW&catalog&target

No. Description Lbs.
WW-NS1624 Sleeves Newspaper 3 Mil Melinex 16W x 24"H Pkg 5 0.85 $15.75(for one pkg of 5) *$12.85 ea.(for 20+ pkgs of 5 - best deal!)

WW-NS2230 Sleeves Newspaper 3 Mil Melinex 22W x 30"H Pkg 5 1.5 *$23.85 $22.55 (we only need a couple pkgs of this size)
(These orders were made possible by the Tampico Lions Club!)

OFFICE SUPPLIES: (From any store)
Manila File Folders (1/3 cut)
Pendoflex Hanging Files
Scissors

If you or your company can help in any way, we would be very grateful.
Newspaper Sleeves, http://www.gaylord.com/adblock.asp?abid=5930&search_by=desc&search_for=NS1624&mpc=WW&catalog&target

ALSO - The Tampico Historic Preservation Advisory Committee has two openings available for members. If you are interested, please contact President, Denise Mickelson 815-499-2699, or Vice President, Denise McLoughlin 815-590-2143 or tampicohistoricalsociety@gmail.com). This group is currently working on procuring grant money to purchase plaques for the buildings listed on Nat'l Registry of Historic Places.

(Do not reply to this "listserver" email. Contact me at tampicohistoricalsociety@gmail.com)

TAMPICO AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY - MUSEUM - FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY/RESEARCH CENTER  119 Main St., P. O. Box 154,  Tampico, IL  61283   www.tampicohistoricalsociety.com   tampicoareahistory@gmail.com  We are an all-volunteer organization so your donations are always appreciated!  Sign up to receive our e-newsletter. Thank you!  Visit us on FACEBOOK.