This bench was created by Karl Crawford and will be raffled off at the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Cross River Heritage Center, which is run by the Schroeder Area Historical Society. The bench was inspired by the late Bob Silver, an accomplished woodworker, West End historian, and Schroeder resident. The celebration will take place at the Cross River Heritage Center from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, September 21, and the raffle will be at 4:00. (L-R) Deonn Cicak, Karl Crawford, Barb Livdahl and Steve Schug.
The Schroeder Area Historical Society (SAHS) invites the community to celebrate 10 years at the Cross River Heritage Center (CRHC) September 21 from 1:00-4:00 p.m.
The program will include an informal talk about the Doris Lamb Memorial Garden and move into sharing memories of the past 10 seasons. To commemorate the event, local woodworker Karl Crawford created a picnic bench/table inspired by the work of Bob Silver of Schroeder that will be given away in a raffle drawing at 4:00 p.m.
The Schroeder Area Historical Society (SAHS) began in 1996. Since then they have renovated the old Stickney Inn, creating the Cross River Heritage Center where they have been fulfilling their mission to research, document, record, and preserve the unique history of the Schroeder area.
Schroeder Area Historical Society supporters began their work by gathering photos, artifacts and recording the oral histories of people in the Schroeder area. After this, through a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Lake Superior Coastal Program grant, society historians created 31 storyboards telling the history of Schroeder.
The next phase for the historians was creating a visual storybook through a Minnesota Historical Society grant called Schroeder Area History… as Shared by Those Who Lived It.
The society’s oral history collection is now installed on the Minnesota Digital Library Minnesota Reflections website, the first organization to have video oral histories on the Minnesota Reflections website.
Currently the Schroeder Area Historical Society is participating in a museum assessment program called Steps through a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. Steps was developed by the American Association of State and Local History to help small museums assess their professional development.
The society publishes three newsletters each year. Its first website was developed in 2006 through a grant from the Cook County Community Fund, and it developed a professional brochure in 2012 through a grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation.
The Schroeder Area Historical Society has a commitment to excellent work, and its 8,000 visitors each season keep coming back to see the historical exhibits, which include monthly artist gallery exhibits. Society volunteers logged over 3,500 hours in 2012.
Each year the Cross River Heritage Center features a new exhibit. In 2013 Schroeder Area Historical Society volunteers, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, created the exhibit Up from the Ashes: Forest Fires in the Arrowhead.
The Schroeder Area Historical Society builds community in many ways, most notably with its annual meeting and community dinner in June and with the John Schroeder Day community celebration in August. In 2013 society volunteers served dinner to about 70 community members, and John Schroeder Day brings in several hundred for a variety of events. In the dead of winter, when Cross River Heritage Center is closed, community members are invited in for a weekly cribbage and game night.
The Cross River Heritage Center is open 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Sunday from Memorial Day weekend through MEA weekend.
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