If there’s one thing I want you to know about the Winona County History Center, it would be this: It is not just a place to dispose of boxes of old, dusty things you don’t know what to do with (though we might take those too!), or simply a place to visit those old items when you wish to reminisce about “back in my day.”
No.
We share stories. Stories like the one your great-grandpa passed down to you. These narratives are alive because YOU are still telling them! That’s who and what and why we are as an organization. Our exhibits give life to stories and objects; we share them with you and help you to participate in the history of tomorrow.
Take “the Griffin,” for example. At roughly the height of you forearm, the hunk of wood looks rather unassuming until you lean in. It raises it’s nose in a snarl, almost as if it objected to the touches of the many hands that wore the varnish from it’s head and back starting in 1888. The eyes without pupils pierce out of deep sockets, seeing nothing and yet everything. Waves of mane swerve around it’s chin, and two feathered wings sweep around it’s shoulders and back. You can see these details for yourself, but this is what you can’t know without a storyteller: Traditionally, the mythical half-lion, half-eagle griffin figure guarded treasures. Our formidable wooden beast – really a staircase decoration – once greeted visitors climbing the Winona County Courthouse stairs. Within the exhibits hall, the treasure it guards is the history of the Courthouse.
Stories like the Griffin’s act like threads. They weave through one another and bind a bigger picture together. When a thread breaks, we lose connection to part of our lived experience as humans. Our Griffin is still growling and the Courthouse is still standing because someone cared enough to tell their story, and others cared to hear it. Let’s keep thinking of history this way — as part of our present, and not a thing of the past. Then we can hold out a whole lot of hope for the bigger picture.
We are so glad you found us here. Come visit us in person at the Winona County History Center in Winona, Minnesota, too! We can’t wait to tell you another story.
