 three syllables say I'll remember you hello welcome to this week's legislative update I'm Jim Baumgart one of your hosts and the net boulevard is the co-host of the program welcome to joining us to talk about historical things on history and Sheboygan County we have with us today the new just a director of development Stephen Rogstart from the Historical Historical Research Center and thank you for coming thank you for having me as I've stumbled through the introduction but that's a busy place you have there in Sheboygan Falls you have programs that you're putting on that's going to be some exciting things we'd like to talk about and you produce books and help people with their genealogy and I countless other things so thank you for coming thank you for having me yes the center is a very very busy place and it's busy in a myriad of different ways which you've identified some of them and I like to think of it as the main source of historical adult continuing education in Sheboygan County I think we do a fantastic job with that it's so great it's it's it what is the most important thing you want people to know about the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center we are vibrant and we are active and I don't think I wouldn't want somebody to put the center in a box and think that all it does is house documents and images which we do of course a million documents and over 500,000 photographic images people think of an archive is a very dusty rather unexciting place to be now I don't and the people that are there don't think so but that's not all that this center does and it is so involved in the community with a number of community outreach programs that I find those fascinating because all of them for the most part are somewhat based on the information that's housed in the center that's fascinating I have to bring up these but you told me before we started that the center publishes four or five books a year correct in addition to all your programs and people coming in and you helping individuals do their own genealogy family history building history business history it's fascinating but these books these books this is I don't know how new this is from bootlegging to brothels Sheboygan County vice during the 1920s and 30s now that's a great title I love that title and you said Beth Dipple your executive director executive director wrote it photos archive documents if you want to know about brothels go to the museum who knew the sausage that made Sheboygan famous the rise of the bratwurst of course that's our pride in Sheboygan county we've got and not just johnsonville but several companies long long rich history it is what made Sheboygan famous and this one stories told in granite and glass about churches and cemeteries and memorials and monuments in the greater Sheboygan area fascinating places to visits so and these are fantastic books we have a bookstore we're talking about a more action in the in the in the building than you think we have a whole bookstore and people can come in there and buy books for birthdays anniversaries christmas so good gifts great assortment of literature yeah it's and it's right in our backyard that's what fascinates me it's not dc it's right here Sheboygan is full of Sheboygan county is full of stories absolutely fantastic stories based on the books that you'll see in the bookshelf well and in some of them have been people that were in world war two that took pictures and year than years later they decided that they didn't want it lost just to their families they wanted everybody to understand the difficulties in interest of one soldier going through world war two and a number of them have written some very well written some basically writers who just wanted to get their information out but a whole range of books on cheese factories and and one-room school houses in the county education right we have a volunteer that has written books on his father and soldiers in the korean war he's working on another book right now the second saturday lecture series for example and you mentioned world war two a lot of people do not know that we had aircraft carriers on the great lakes of world war two for the practice of the planes coming in and so we actually have a speaker coming in to speak on that and so we have all all this wonderful history that's not lost but our job at the center and the job of everybody really is to preserve the stories because that's what makes up the history because history is storytelling primarily before we had the written word we had people telling oral history and those were the stories so but we have some phenomenal talent in the greater shabuigan area and i also wanted to tell you about a couple of exciting events we've got coming one is august 16th and 17th the center is sponsoring a two-day historical symposium this year and the theme is going to be history and travel and the idea is once you go to the symposium i want everybody so anxious and excited about what they heard that they're going to get in their car and go and see these things that they heard about for two days so we're going to have eight different speakers coming in over two days and we have um lectures on and presentations on circus history the indian native american effigy burial mounds in the area civil war sites in wisconsin i'm going to be doing the lincoln sites in wisconsin lighthouses in wisconsin just uh gangsters in wisconsin and in popular sites associated with the gangsters of the 1920s and 30s okay i have to take you back i know that you are a lincoln scholar that's your passion you spent years speaking about and leading tours on lincoln you just said lincoln in wisconsin what are lincoln's ties to wisconsin well he was here twice he was here as a as a 23 year old militia soldier in the blackhawk war and he was actually mustard out of service up by whitewater wisconsin and you have there used to be a great big handmade uh large white billboard that was painted now they've put in a much more uh more impressive marker there but lincoln was mustard out of service near whitewater wisconsin no i don't think people know that he uh was invited back to wisconsin in 1859 the year after he debated douglas and he spoke at the wisconsin stayed fair and the only time he ever spoke on the subject of agriculture and he spoke at 13th and wells in downtown milwaukee which you can find a marker there for that and if you go to a state fair park in milwaukee you got to look between these poplar trees which you'll see another bronze marker commemorating lincoln at the state fair yes and he was also in janesville so if you think about the talman restorations lincoln spent the night yet jane um william talman's home there in janesville and spoke and also spoke in beloit in a building called handshift hall which is still there it's the only building left in wisconsin that lincoln actually spoke in and there's a tablet on that building so we have direct ties to abraham lincoln and you are i believe hosting some programs on lincoln coming up this year we well we have two that i'm really excited about i've been coming up every year for the last six years doing what we call the lincoln seminar and um it's every tuesday and october first four tuesdays in october and this year i'm going to be doing it on lincoln artifacts i have to weave stories about lincoln through artifacts and sites that maybe people have never seen and so that's what the class is going to be about and equally uh exciting for me is the fact that this september 17 through the 20th we're going to be doing a four-day bus tour through personalized tours to springfield illinois and i'm going to kind of go along as the traveling historian as i call it i did this years ago for wisconsin public radio and i'm going to do it again for the center and um we're going to be Kathleen Dunn yes and we're going to be seeing some places at other bus tours that go to springfield um you'll see things on my tour that you're not going to see on other tours okay so i'm really excited about it but the bus tour the symposium some great events coming up in addition to our history on the move uh lecture series and we also have the second saturday's lecture series genealogy classes so you when you're talking about it being a busy place it's a very busy place but it's not necessarily always busy in the center we're all over right you're yeah you're not just a building the building is just the stopping point right everywhere we're everywhere yes but while we're at that subject one of the things that at some point you'll need to do is to have another building to hold all the material that you're getting you're gathering now and uh you're sort of making the wards creek because you've got so much and you're going to get more over time well for example yes you're absolutely right the center is stuffed it is is that that would be an appropriate term it is stuffed and just in the last couple of weeks we received two complete collections one is a week's collection from an architectural firm which has 16 drawers if you can imagine 16 drawers of blueprints from 18 from 1905 through the 1980s 471 drawings now those all have to be you know preserved catalog and stored you focused your last newsletter on that yes weeks weeks correct and then the ballford funeral home recently donated to our center their records which is in 50 some volumes all of their funeral records from 1899 through the 1970s so again if you think of shelf space and you think of 50 volumes just for that collection or where do you store 16 drawers of architectural drawings and they have to be stored in the right way in the right environment climate controlled yes it doesn't take long to realize that the center's in its 35th year yes we're we're we're stuffed and i think that within the next few years you'll probably be seeing an endeavor towards building a new building and as part of your job as development director is to encourage people to well absolutely and and you know people always think development is just going out and raising money and i think there's a misnomer in that because people are always much more supportive when they know what it is they're supporting and so for me it's not just doing the obvious thing which is raising money for the center but equally important if not more important is raising awareness and and making sure that people know who we are what we're doing what are we you know how active are we in the community and you have to be able to identify that and then you have to articulate that and and really convey that adequately which i think is equally my job as well as soliciting for funds so i'm excited about it it's a great deal of fun great people to work for you know i couldn't be happier with this and i would imagine you're pretty much given a direction to go to and in a plan and then you're pretty much left on your own to get it done i mean with the help of well nobody does anything alone and i i certainly don't i again everything is a team approach right we sit down and we map out our strategies and we map out what it is our goals for the year and it's it's always a team approach but certainly i have yeah and my things to do we have to uh ended there i do want to thank um the uh steven rockstead for coming today uh director of development with each one county historical research center we wish you the very best and thank you hopefully uh come back would love to come back maybe do one on lincoln i would love that too right until next week this has been legislative update