This file portion of www.watertownhistory.org website

Appeal for Waterproofing our Treasures

Summer, 2008

Dear Friends of History:

You’ve all heard the expression, “April showers bring May flowers”, haven’t you? Well, allow me to state that June showers bring nothing but headache and heartache. By now virtually all of you who are reading this have been effected in some way by the recent flooding, be it flooded basement or flooded garden. Be grateful that we are not in Iowa or in the more central parts of the state, such as Gays Mills or Baraboo where the entire town was flooded. We escaped with comparatively little destruction.

I wish I could say that we “on the hill” escaped unscathed, but the fact is, the weather is no respecter of historical buildings. Our lovely Octagon House experienced flooding in the basement “sand room” and created a form of quick sand, causing several historic pieces to sink into the mire. This has now receded. The other building which was visited by flooding and was damaged was our tour center.

The basement had standing water which seeped in through seams and cracks in the foundation. If not for the quick actions of our manager, Linda Werth, our caretakers, and several volunteers, most of our archives would have been lost. As it is, several negatives from a collection of images taken by Otto Kohls of Watertown scenes in the 1950s and 60s were damaged, as were several items in the Van Alstine collection, one item being a “dummy” copy of a self-printed book which was soaked. Everything else was saved and placed high above any water but it means that our archives will be inaccessible to the public for some time to come.

This is a wake-up call. Never before have we experienced such a phenomenon at the Historical Society and we were, frankly, unprepared. Now is not the time to ask for money, since we are all in the same boat, so to speak, but ask it I must. We face the necessity of having to have the basement of the Tour Center made water-tight in order to safe-guard the historic images and records of our city. We appeal to you, our members, to contribute anything that you are able to give. The cost of such a project as this may be as high as $14,000.00, and we are not in the position to cover the whole amount without sacrificing services and cutting back on our staff.

In addition, we need to start planning for the future as far as the care of our archives is concerned. We need more legal sized file cabinets, a new computer system to better monitor our collections and also to enable us to communicate via email (something we cannot do with our present system), a new photo-copier, so many things.

Therefore, I ask you, our members, to please donate to the cause by sending in your contributions, however large, to the Watertown Historical Society Tour Center Water-proofing and Updating Fund, 919 Charles Street, Watertown, WI 53094. You can also send contributions (which, by the way, are all tax deductible) via credit card by means of the convenience of PayPal.

Together we can get through this and in the end we will be a much better and stronger historical society for this set-back.

Till next time,

Historically yours

William F. Jannke III

President

Watertown Historical Society