Meeker County Museum at the G.A.R. Hall

If you’ve visited the G.A.R. Hall or are familiar with Meeker County history, you might know the name “Van Spence.” Albert Van Spence and his family called Meeker County home for over two decades. While the family was in the minority, they weren’t the only Blacks in Meeker County at the time. A look at the 1880 US Federal Census shows four Black families working at the Ames brickyard northeast of Litchfield in Darwin Township. This included James and Clara Malone, Jeremiah Va

Earlier this year, the Meeker County Museum was excited to join the Minnesota Digital Library. This free, online library includes photos and archives from across the state. As we considered what the Museum wanted to contribute, the historic Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Hall seemed the logical place to start. We brought a dozen photographs and three original G.A.R. account books to the library’s staff, who scanned the photos and over 600 pages before returning the items

Recently, our Museum staff was going through some files, when we came across a short, handwritten history about the Litchfield Toboggan Club of 1886. We were instantly curious and turned to the newspapers to see what more we could learn. 1886 Lithograph of tobogganers. Source: Library of Congress However, before there was Litchfield’s Toboggan Club, there was the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The Carnival started in 1886 as a way to show outsiders that the state could be enjoyed,

Around 1:00 a.m. on August 20, 1924, four unidentified men came to Cosmos, Minnesota. Quietly, they cut the town’s telephone and telegraph lines and made their way to the First State Bank of Cosmos. They entered through a basement window and found their way to the safe. Using nitroglycerine, the men blew open the safe. Inside, they found two smaller compartments. They blasted their way into the bottom compartment, but before they could do the same to the top section, they wer