Buffalo Center Historical Society overflowing with artifacts
17 Aug 2022
News, Blog
With no place to store the town’s memorabilia and some locals discarding historical items, Pam Angstman founded the Buffalo Center Historical Society in 2007 to be able to preserve the town’s history.
Based at the Heritage Museum located within the Heritage Town Center, the Buffalo Center Historical Society has collected and displayed artifacts from the town’s earliest days. Some of these items include photos, a rocking chair that belonged to one of the founders, bricks from the original school built in 1896 and jail logs from the early 1900s.
Throughout the years, visitors have been able to view old wedding dresses, military uniforms, farm implements, medical/dentist history and more. The society rotates displays to keep the museum fresh with new information.
The historical society also manages the Grant Township School House #5, located six miles outside Buffalo Center on County Road R20, which closed around 1955. The group has since replaced the roof, porch and windows to maintain the building. Each year, elementary students of the North Iowa Community School District visit the schoolhouse to explore what education was like in that period, such as subjects, customs, snacks and games.
“There are still people alive who went to that school and who are quite passionate about it,” Angstman said. “We think it’s important ... to teach the present generation what it was like to go to school in a rural schoolhouse back then.”
Throughout the year, the Buffalo Center Historical Society gets involved in the community through a parade float and music in the park at Bison Days and suppers for the Bluegrass Jams. The group has also put together genealogy presentations, cemetery walks and speakers in the past.
The group has found itself overflowing with donations, forcing it to decide to build a storage building to preserve excess artifacts safely. The group still needs to raise roughly $20,000. More information and a donation form on the project can be found at https://www.bchistoricalsociety.org/storage-building-project.
The society meets on the second Sunday of each month and encourages anyone looking to join to attend a meeting; there are no dues.
“It’s a great group of people, and it’s fun to work with all of them,” said Angstman.
By Kaylee Schuermann, Winn-Worth Betco Marketing Director