VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Barnes County’s 150th Anniversary is coming up in 2024 and the Barnes County Historical Society is looking into the idea of putting out a book covering the last 50 years of Barnes County History since 1976.
The 76 book is a 360-page hardcover book concentrating on the first 100 years of the county, communities, and the families. It was indeed a labor of love to create that involved LOTS of work and participation from the community.
Museum curator Wes Anderson said we’ve been discussing the direction of such a book today and the costs involved. The last book we did was for Valley City’s 125th in 2008. That looked at the last 25 years of the community with Then and Now color photos utilizing our photograph collection as never before. It was a softcover publication of 200 pages. We initially set the price of that at $35 to cover costs. While we did manage to do that we overestimated demand and quantity in an effort to get the necessary price-break to lower the initial printing costs DOWN to $35. We sit on more than enough to get us to the 150th.
He said we wanted to start something with this in 2020 but COVID-19 hit and 2021 was spent recovering and all of a sudden it is the middle of 2022! The gathering of information would have to happen to have folks submit their family information and photos since 1976. A daunting task indeed!
There is the idea of crowdfunding the book once we knew the size and scope to give X amount of space for $X and at what cost for each book. With the situation now with supply chains and printing costs, we’ve been advised it might be unwise to try to print something at this time until things settle down. BUT we need FEEDBACK on what kind of book do you want made? What would you BUY and for how much?
The 1976 book is an invaluable resource of information we use on nearly a daily basis to help with family genealogy and looking to the future, such a book would have its uses. The 2008 model is a neat time capsule of a book looking at change and reflecting that moment in time in our community. SO much has changed in the last 50 years of our County Community.
There is indeed a story to tell there worth telling. We’re going to need your help to make that happen. Ideas? Volunteers (Time and talent) Cooperation and participation, MONEY. This is piggybacking on our Smithsonian Exhibit “How We Work” looking at the last 150 years of working. We’re breaking the exhibit down into three fifty-year sections of “Farming with Horsepower”, “Agriculture with Gas power” and “Agribusiness with Deisel Power”. We want to borrow your photos and stories to be a part of this exhibit that is slated to premier in March 2024 in time for the North Dakota Winter Show (NDWS).
It starts with FEEDBACK. Anderson said we want to hear from you, so email your suggestions to bchistoricalsociety@hotmail.com or call Wes Anderson at 701-845-0966.