OUR NEW MUSEUM

In an earlier Blog post we noted that our opening day was June 26, 2010. So why does the cornerstone of the building say 2005?

The Kelleys Island Historical Assoc. was formed in 1980. It was obvious that we needed a museum so we cleared out the stone church and move some of our more interesting items in. This was a tight fit since one-half of the space was also our gift shop.

Back in those days, our logo was our letterhead. Not the best quality but it did the job. We didn’t even put our address on our letters!

Next came our brochure. We still featured the church since that was the cornerstone of our organization, but we were looking to the future. This was the first step in raising funds for the new museum.

"What's past is prologue" is a quotation from the play The Tempest by William Shakespeare. The phrase was originally used to suggest that all that has happened before that time, the "past," has led what someone was about to do: commit or make another choice. In contemporary use, the phrase stands for the idea that history sets the context for the present. The quotation is engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, and is commonly used by the military when discussing the similarities between war throughout history.

After years of fund-raising, we finally received our construction permits in 2002, design work was finalized in 2005 and the foundation was poured. Each year a little more was accomplished. Once the walls were up, it wasn’t until 2008 that we began the interior work. In 2009 we began moving furniture and displays into the museum and that fall, we opened the doors for a big rummage sale. We finally opened the doors to our new museum in 2010.

Once the museum was built and the doors opened, we realized that we had outgrown the church, which no longer accurately represented who we were or our goals. The old line drawing was a bit outdated and the original artwork could not be found, resulting in low-quality copies. It was time to move on.

For a few years we used this picture on our Facebook page and letterhead which was colorful, worked well, and was a bit more contemporary. We were still wrestling to come up with a design that more accurately represented our new museum complex.

Finally, in 2018 we came up with a design that worked well for us, and is now our official logo. We thank Daniel Soldner Jr. who created this logo. Since our formation in 1980 we have used the church, the foundation of this organization, to represent us. Today, we are so much more. With this new logo, we confidently reopen the door to our Island’s history. 

In the new logo, we chose to honor our roots by featuring the fan light above the church door. The church door honors our roots (it’s where we began) and KIHA (the initials that most Islanders know us by) better represents where we are today. 

Our signage has gone a few changes too. Our earliest sign promoted the butterfly festival and the Future Home of KIHA.

Then we opened with this sign. 

Once we were fully operational, we noticed that the old green and white sign was showing wear on one side. Yes, we saved it and hung it on the south side of the building. This new, more modern sign was created.

It was minimal in design. It shouted KI Historical Assoc. but the museum was in such small letters many people overlooked it. We also discovered that the pale gray color often blended in with the sky and could not be read from a distance. It was time to work on a new design that better promoted our mission. Once retired, this sign was reinstalled near the front door of the museum.

 

Signs don’t last forever, and this sign was beginning to show its age. We went back to the drawing board and a new sign was created and installed in April 2018.

This one has a more historic look, shows how long we have been existence and moves away from the Association’s name to more boldly feature the museum. We also added some enhancements to the base, featuring artifacts from our commercial fishing industry.

We are so glad that we have been able to move forward while keeping our feet firmly planted in the past. These are our roots and we should never forget them.