Kregel Windmill Factory Museum Partnering with PSC

Hello everyone. For the first post of 2014 I would like to just catch everyone up on what's been going on around the museum and what we've been up to here. It has been a busy last few weeks around here as we get ready to for the new year. We are hoping for a large increase in the number of visitors this next year as well as being able to implement some educational programming that we've been wanting to do. As far as the educational aspect of our goals we have been able to gain a great partnership for the next few months.

The Kregel Windmill Factory Museum will be partnering with Peru State College through their class "History of Nebraska" taught by Dr. Sara Crook. This class seeks to find an interesting and new project for the students to work on each semester that it is taught. Previously in the class students had undertaken the project of researching a number of buildings in Auburn, NE in an attempt to create a National Historic District in the city. This semester the students will turn their sites on the history of the Kregel Windmill Co. Each student will be assigned a family that had purchased an "ELI" windmill during the peak production years of the factory (1900 to 1940) and will be doing research, both here at the museum and at the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln, about who purchased the windmill, how much they paid for the windmill, when they bought it, and where the windmill might have been erected. It would be a great plus if some of these antique windmills were still intact on the original farmstead. Having done the research the students will compile a PowerPoint presentation of their findings and present them at an event one evening here in the museum. This event will be held sometime towards the end of the semester on a date yet to be set. We hope to have the family members of the original windmill purchasers in attendance that evening, as well as any of the public that would like to attend.

This partnership is a great step forward in the museum's connection with the local community as well as demonstrating how the museum can be used as an outstanding educational tool. If anyone would like to attend the event, stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, or of course here on the blog for an announcement of the date and time which should be coming soon.

We greatly look forward to this new year, and may your wheels always catch the wind.