May 4, 2010

LAKE STATES ANNOUNCES COLLECTIONS GRANTS

At the annual banquet program held Sunday, May 2nd at the Baraboo Arts Banquet Hall, LSRHA Development Coordinator Dr. Byron Long announced to attendees receipt of two grants to assist the group's volunteer historians in the preservation and cataloging of its recently acquired C&NW Ry. technical drawing collection.

The first, from the Union Pacific Foundation, will provide the funding for a qualified Data Entry Specialist for the project which will begin in June. Mr. Robert W. Turner, President of the U.P. foundation, stated in a recent letter: "We are proud to support Lake States Railway Historical Association, Inc. and extend our best wishes for continued success."

The second grant, from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation Matching Gift Program, will provide a stipend for a college student Summer Intern to assist on the project. Attending Sunday's program were rail history enthusiasts from six states. Exhibits assembled from the Lake State's archives provided drawings, photographs and analyses of the historic Merrimac bridge over Lake Wisconsin and the Portage Lake span in Upper Michigan. In concert with the "Historic Railway Structure" theme of the day, Author David Leider presented a program on the construction of the monumental Soo Line freight terminal in Chicago. Other highlights included an Open House at the expanded Phase II Archives at 319 Water Street. Volunteers also assembled an operating scale model rail layout to provide the sights and sounds of the steam era. Exhibits of two scale dioramas with the theme of "Home for the Locomotive - The Engine House" provided further interpretation.

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