On Exhibit
The Joy of the Arts: Winona Lake Park Bandshell
This exhibit celebrates 100 years of municipal music, featuring the Winona Lake Park Bandshell. One of the last of its kind, the iconic structure in the city’s public lakeside park hosted musical sensations across the years and is still a popular concert site to this day.
Winona’s Lumber Industry
Lumber played an important role in building Winona. Dive into the origins of the lumber industry in Winona and realize its affect on the city and county as we know it.
General Store
Each period-acurrate artifact on the “General Store” shelves helps to show what a 19th-century shopping experience might have been like.
Stories & Structures: How Buildings Tell Us About Ourselves
In this exhibit, visitors learn about iconic buildings in the Winona area and discover the people who built them.
Voices of the Armory
Replete with personal interview components, “Voices of the Armory” brings museum guests a peek into the past of the historic National Guard Armory that houses the History Center museum.
Security State Bank
Relive an era where Jesse James posed a real threat to banks like this one in Lewiston, MN. The Security State Bank replica façade and interior illustrates how bank companies outfitted their buildings to guard against danger.
Flatliners Speed Society
This fast-paced tale reveals the story of some Winona-based car enthusiasts and their 1931 Model T Ford racecar that won world records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Walking Through Time (Children’s Exhibit)
Shimmy through a prehistoric cave, track dinosaur footprints, and climb inside a replica steamboat in the “Walking Through Time” exhibit! Designed for the young and young-at-heart.
Traveling & Temporary Exhibits
This special section of the museum changes at intervals to highlight different stories, usually brought in by community members or area organizations. Currently, it features the history of the Great River Shakespeare Festival.
Winona Timeline
Take a literal “walk through time” featuring a chronological retelling of key moments in Winona County’s past.
The Cube
Stuffed with sensory activities and learning materials, “The Cube” is a safe, fun space for younger museum visitors to get hands-on with history.
Coming Soon…
- Made In Winona County
- Winona County’s Architecture
- Honoring Native Histories
- Emergencies & Scandals
- Winona County Military Service
- Little Historians Play Space
- Celebrating the Arts in Winona County
- Our Stories, Our History
- Special “Pop-up” Exhibits
- The River Gallery
Featured
EXHIBITS
The Joy of the Arts: Winona Lake Park Bandshell
Winona’s musicians had a problem. Where, oh where, should they play?
Early in 1915, the Winona Association of Commerce approached George Colburn and asked him to be the founding director of the new Winona Municipal Band. Within five weeks, George organized a band that presented its first concert at Levee Park. The concert, however, was a disappointment. The music did not carry far due to noises in the park area. This situation started the nine-year journey to build a bandshell.
In spring 1923, the Park Board hired Edwin Clark to design the bandshell. It is now one of the few, if not the only, surviving bandshells of its style. The Winona Municipal Band presented its first regular summer concert there on June 25, 1924. The Winona Republican-Herald newspaper observed that “public enjoyment of the concert was increased by the acoustic effects created by the new shell.”
Stories in Structures: How Buildings Tell Us About Ourselves
Buildings have stories. These stories are about us.
How does a place get to look the way it does? Why are some buildings built? Why are some torn down and others preserved? Explore these notions in the newest exhibit at the Winona County History Center! Buildings reflect our identities, our choices, and our values. They reflect our hopes and dreams. Some buildings make us stop and gape. Others are so familiar we hardly notice them when passing. Some buildings inspire passionate feelings that lead to conflict or compromise.
Minnesconsin: Dick Lano’s Photography of the Winona area in the 1970s
‘Minnesconsin’ is a state of mind that spans the Mississippi just like a bridge connecting Minnesota and Wisconsin. Richard “Dick” Lano personifies this connection. He was born and raised in Winona, as was his wife Betsy (Burleigh) Lano. In the 1970s they moved their family across the river to Bluff Siding. There he and his family built a home in Chicken Valley and he operated a photography studio.
He picked up photography as a youth and began documenting his trips to the Boundary Waters and out West, his hometown, his friends, and the Minnesconsin region. This exhibit offers a retrospective of Dick’s work mostly from the 1970s. It affords us insight into the evolution of his artistic vision from amateur to professional.
This exhibit is located on Level B of the History Center.
Winona County Historical Society Capital Campaign
Together, we will build a cultural destination that not only stimulates economic growth but also provides a space where people of all backgrounds come together to celebrate the diverse tapestry of the human past. We invite you to join us on this remarkable journey towards a brighter and more inspired future.