By Brownie Plaster, Board Chair, Destination Cleveland County, Inc.
Traveling, moving, raising money, designing, planning -- that sums up the last two months of Destination Cleveland County’s activities.
Travels continue. Robin Hendrick, John Schweppe III and I attended the League of Historic American Theatres’ conference in Newberry, S.C., April 13-15. We were in conversation and meeting with theatre directors from all over the United States and Canada. We learned so much about the operation of a theatre and good practices that we need to follow. And we were thrilled that some of the recommendations the consultants made were things we are already doing! On another jaunt April 24, some of us visited with Kerry Taylor of the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-CH. He is helping us plan for our next phase of community engagement which will be researching the wonderful stories of our local citizens. Through that contact, we were able to secure an intern from the University of Louisville to work with our history committee over the summer. He arrived this week.
Moving. DCC hired a professional mover to move the objects and artifacts from the former museum to the new location that will be used for storage and continuing inventory work. We are so pleased that all items have been moved safely and are all together in one location and on one floor. This permanent location is going to provide the space for the history committee to finish its documentation work as well as provide for the easy selection of objects for rotating displays at the Scruggs Center.
Raising money. Our Rhythm and Roots campaign continues to do well, in spite of tough economic times. We believe that we are having this continued success because local citizens truly believe in the future economic impact that these two projects will have to our city, county and region. The Rural Center awarded us $400,000 for the Don Gibson Theatre. We are all investing in our county and region.
Designing. Stan Anthony of MBAJ Architecture is in the process of finalizing the plans for the Theatre, and Roger Holland of Holland and Hamrick Architects is beginning his work to determine what needs to be done at the former courthouse to bring it up to code so that it will be serviceable for public usage.
Planning. Cissy Anklam, the museum design team co-coordinator, was here April 30-May 1 and conducted four community meetings around the county. Cissy was gratified to see the number of citizens who came to each of the area meetings with their comments and suggestions of resources to use as we move forward. Cissy and her team members will be back in Cleveland County this next week, May 22-23 for more dialogue and will be here in mid-June to present the final Master Plan document to the public (time and location TBA).
Do we feel that we are part of something incredibly worthwhile? Are we having fun? Yes and yes. Be a part of our effort. Volunteer! DCC office is 704.487.6233. There’s a lot more work to do and a place for all who are interested.
Monday, May 19, 2008
DCC report: a busy two months
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Public sessions focus on Scruggs Center planning
Discussion was lively as groups of Clevelanders met at four locations this week for 'Conversations with Cissy' about master-planning for the Earl Scruggs Center - Songs and Stories of the Carolina Foothills. Destination Cleveland County (DCC) is developing the center at the historic old county courthouse in downtown Shelby.
These photos are from the session held at the Kings Mountain (N. C.) Historical Museum, where Mickey Crowell (pictured with J. T. Scruggs, inset) is director. Cissy Anklam (left in the second photo with Diane Rooney) heads the master planning design team. In bottom photo are Johnny Reavis, Larry Hamrick, Sr., Ms. Rooney, and Ms. Anklam.
At this session and others held in Shelby, Boiling Springs, and Lawndale, Ms. Anklam and DCC leaders shared gleanings from interaction with the community to date as to prospective themes and programming for the Scruggs Center and told about early work on a building layout to encompass the variety of displays, functions, and events anticipated for the revitalized courthouse building. Participants shared their ideas and responses.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Banking dollars and dreams
The green and brown tin box is designed to hold four separate brass-colored banks inside. There are slots in the flip-up lid through which to deposit coins and bills into the banks. And there are little holders on the lid for labels, to indicate what the money is to go for, once it’s saved up. The item is labeled as a Home Budget Bank, product of Tudor Metal Products Corporation in New York.
The bank came with many preprinted labels, stored inside, for common budget items. It must have been wartime, for the labels include Defense Bonds and USO in addition to Rent and Fuel.
But someone (was it Miss Thelma?) has turned over the preprinted labels and penciled in different, more personal labels instead.
Honeymoon, says one. And three others: Mine. Yours. Ours.
Contributor: Pat Poston
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Historical artifacts being moved to storage location
Cooperative local efforts have identified a storage location for the thousands of historical artifacts held in the former county courthouse building in Shelby, N. C.
The collection will be moved in early May to the large gymnasium of the former Hunter School building on Pinkney Street in Shelby, adjacent to and sharing back parking with the Cleveland County Schools’ instructional center. The gym area is no longer used for school purposes.
The artifacts were donated for a former historical museum at the old courthouse and have been held there by Cleveland County government, on behalf of all citizens, since that museum closed. For several months now, volunteers of Destination Cleveland County, Inc. (DCC) have been working to inventory and properly document the artifacts, with the guidance of professional museum collection managers. They estimate that about half the overall job is done so far and expect to complete the work more quickly going forward, by having the artifacts in a building purposely set up for their cataloging, inventory, and storage, said Sherry Grenier, co-chair of the DCC History Committee.
Local volunteers Libby Sarazen and Millie Lattimore have been leading the documentation of paper archives ranging from early governmental documents to letters from famous forebears to hundreds of old photographs. The ambitious goal is to inventory and document each and store it by proper accession number for ready access in both original form and computer scan. Right now, their workroom is a cramped former office in the old courthouse, ringed with boxes and files.
“It will be wonderful to have adequate work space and facilities to process a document completely all at one time and know it will not have to be touched again for proper archiving,” Ms. Sarazen said.
Local governmental and school leaders cooperated to arrange use of the space, and DCC collection managers provided information about optimum storage and work needs, said Eddie Bailes of the county manager’s office. Preparation of the site for its new function is being completed by county maintenance director Pete McFarland and crew.
The relocation will also facilitate planning for the interior renovation of the former courthouse building, which DCC has leased from the county for development of the prospective Earl Scruggs Center – Songs & Stories of the Carolina Foothills. Plans for the Center anticipate rotating exhibits drawing from the local collection of artifacts.
Roger Holland of Holland & Hamrick Architects, PA, engaged to provide architectural services for the renovation, said planning work could proceed more efficiently after the relocation. “We’ll be better able to move around and thoroughly examine the structure – for example, determining which walls are load-bearing,” he said. Work so far has been careful and cautious so as not to disturb the unprotected collection or create dust or debris that would compromise it.
Relocation of the collection also addresses other needs, DCC board chairman Brownie Plaster said. Fundamental are adequate security and environmental conditions for preserving the collection – for example, lighting, heating, and cooling, she said. Another is adequate space and furnishings such as shelving for organizing and arranging the artifacts, as well as proper work tables and facilities such as bathrooms for those working on the collection.
Friday, April 25, 2008
School trophy cup presents mystery
Volunteer cataloger Eleanor Morgan, inventorying the cup, and others around the worktable raised some possibilities. Perhaps the engraver made an error? Perhaps it was a rotating cup? Perhaps as the Great Depression began there was no money for a new one?
But there’s no way of knowing for sure, unless some reader has knowledge of the cup and lets us know by sending a message through Comments below.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Happy birthday to Laura
Friday, April 18, 2008
In case of fire…throw grenade!
The strange-looking device had an accession number on it, though, and from that and the label, Dr. Love was able to give it a name and a bit of history.
“It’s a fire extinguisher for manual use,” she said, donated to the former historical museum many years ago by the Kings Mountain Fire Department. How was it used? She pointed to the label: “Throw bulb at base of flame.”
For any who are interested, the volunteers thought, it should be easy enough to follow up and learn more detail about home firefighting in days gone by. But follow-up turned out to be tough and tantalizing. For starters:
-- No one reached at the Kings Mountain Fire Department could immediately recall the device or donating it.
-- An Internet search at first turned up no useful results: no Out-o-Matic, no vintage fire extinguisher, no fire globe, no search term that yielded a description or image of a device like this.
Then came a breakthrough, and it was a good thing on Martha Stewart’s website that unlocked the puzzle. Her interview with a firefighting historian covered the evolution of extinguishing devices, from the leather buckets and warning rattlers that colonists used to early water “syringes” pumped by hand to grenades to extinguishers improved to the models used today.
Ah, ha, a fire grenade!
Use of that search term on the Internet yielded dozens of results, including the Glass Extinguisher Emporium. That site is the only one found that had a reference to and picture of an Out-o-Matic fire grenade exactly like ours.
The site tells the general history of fire grenades, which had a life span from 1860 to 1960 or thereabouts. Grenades of the first generation frequently were made in the form of ornate, colorful bottles prized by collectors today (see the many illustrations on the Emporium site). The second generation by post-1900 makers took on a more industrial design, similar to the professional-looking model in Cleveland County’s collection.
Saline solution and other fire-killing liquids were used in the grenades. At one point, many used carbon tetrachloride, considered hazardous today. The label on the local device, however, says “Contains no carbon tetrachloride.”
The search led to Denver, where the device was made, and contact with the Denver Firefighters Museum where Angela Rayne is enthusiastic executive director.
Ms. Rayne sent best wishes to local volunteers. She also wanted them to know the fire museum network has undertaken a collective project to further delineate the standard museum classification system (used locally) in the area of firefighting. When completed, this will provide museums an in-common nomenclature for more precisely naming items within the standard system’s broader categories.
Note: If you recall fire grenades or ever used one, we’d like to hear about it. Tell us by clicking on Comments below.
Contributor: Pat Poston
