Allen County Historical Society will learn soon whether $72,000 will be available to do repairs and remodeling to the Old Jail Museum, 201 N. Jefferson Ave.
Jeff Kluever, ACHS executive director, said at the society’s winter meeting Tuesday evening he would be in Topeka to testify on behalf of a grant that would generate 80 percent of the money, or $57,600.
“We raised $14,400, enough to quality for the grant,” he said.
The state money will come from the Kansas Historical Society’s Heritage Fund. Because the funds would be used to preserve a historic landmark in the jail, Kluever thinks ACHS’s chances are very good. Also, he noted, a Heritage Fund grant hasn’t been made in southeast Kansas recently and “the state likes to spread the money around.”
Kluever said $2,000 had been raised to paint the Gen. Fred Funston home, 14 S. Washington Ave. The project is expected to cost $5,000.
A third project that awaits funding is a new roof for the Funston Meeting Hall, next to the jail museum and where last night’s meeting occurred. That will cost about $10,000.
Dress rehearsal for a Civil War presentation that will be taken to Allen County schools will occur this week, Kluever reported. It will involve authentic artifacts ACHS has accumulated and will be facilitated by a grant from Westar, used to purchase display cases to protect artifacts when they’re carried from the museum.
The Westar grant also will pay for a permanent display case in the society’s museum, 20 S.
Washington Ave. It will have glass that filters ultra-violet light, meaning sensitive artifacts, such as pencil-written letters, may be displayed without fear of damage, Kluever said.
He encouraged about 30 people at the winter meeting to stop by the main museum to see three new exhibits. One focuses on 1912 and women’s suffrage, which was then a rallying point in Iola. Another shows historic home appliances.
The third features information about Edward Funston, Gen. Fred Funston’s father. The elder Funston moved his family to the Carlyle area after he served in the Civil War. Later, he was elected to the Kansas House, where he was its speaker in 1875. The next year Funston moved to the state senate and finally served 12 years in Congress after first being elected in 1884.
SHOW AND TELL was entertainment for the meeting.
Kluever carefully displayed Gen. Funston’s second Congressional Medal of Honor.
He explained the first, held by his family, was more elaborate and the second, given to ACHS by the family, came Funston’s way because he still was alive when the medal was redesigned.
Funston won the medal during the Philippines Insurrection for a river crossing. He ordered two soldiers, who also received the medal of honor, to swim the river with a tow rope, which permitted rafts carrying Funston and other soldiers to cross.
Kluever said Funston’s role in fighting once across the river may have been more exemplary and fortified his winning of the medal.
Loretta Andres showed her mother’s bracelet, ornately carved and about 80 years old.
