papakulinski Griffith Historical Society, Meetings

Annual Meeting And Dinner

The Griffith Historical Society’s Annual Meeting and Dinner will be held at the Griffith Senior Center, 349 N. Indiana St., on November 16th. The evening will begin with a turkey and ham dinner, complete with all the fixings at 6:30 pm.

The Annual Meeting will follow with an overview of the Historical Society’s 2021 activities, plans for the upcoming year, and the election of officers and board members for 2022.

For further details and to attend the dinner meeting, contact President Nancy Stout at [email protected]

lbkulinski Griffith Historical Society, Griffith History

Farewell, Dear Friend

Mother. Teacher. Wife. Bookstore owner. Grandmother. Genealogist. Great Grandmother. Historian. Friend.

Maxine Hess was all these things and more during her long life, but today we write about Maxine as Historian and Friend.

Maxine was a contributing member of the Griffith Historical Society for more than 30 years and served many terms on our Board of Directors. She worked with us in maintaining the Grand Trunk Depot Museum, creating and growing our Griffith Historical Park, and establishing our Griffith History Rooms at Franklin Center.

There wasn’t an event or activity that Maxine didn’t volunteer for, among them working the Historical Society booth at our annual Railroad Fair for 19 years; scheduling elves for our Santa in the Caboose every Christmas and working the event; helping set up our historical rooms at Franklin Center; and starting a veterans registry that we will continue in her name.

Maxine’s legacy will live on with The Hess Express, the barrel train for children she was instrumental in our acquiring and which was named for her. The train not only is a source of income for our Society, but also provides fun times for so many children each year.

Over the years so many Griffith Historical Society members have become Life Members, like Maxine and her late husband, Jay, were. But more than that, our working together to preserve our town’s history resulted in life-long friendships, as well.

So, today, we say goodbye to our friend, Maxine. She will not be forgotten.

lbkulinski Activities & Events, Griffith Historical Society, History Notes

About Our Summer Activities…

These are unusual times — indeed there’s been no time like it since the 1918 worldwide Spanish Flu pandemic killed millions of people. (You know we’d have to get a little history in this article somewhere!) But times are dire now, and they call for unusual measures. No one knows when life will get back to normal, so for now, we cannot make any plans for the summer. Check this website in the coming weeks for news about any activities that might be coming up. And please do everything you can to stay safe and well.

lbkulinski Activities & Events, Griffith Historical Society, Museums

Griffith Historical Society hosted its first Calumet Outdoors Tour

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On November 16th, we hosted a Calumet Outdoor Series Tour, which came from a contact at the Field Museum.

Mario Longoni, Urban Anthropology Manager at The Field Museum, is the Calumet Outdoor Coordinator and is working to unite the Northwest Indiana historical societies to help preserve, promote and expand their combined resources and assets for the mutual benefit of the residents and enthusiasts of regional history.

The plan is for these different area historical societies to meet every three months to learn more about each other,  sharing each other’s history and local stories and how they operate within their communities. In addition, the Outdoor Series will be creating a traveling relic tour to offer additional opportunities to provide further education on the history and what makes each of the areas unique.

Considering this was our first time ever hosting something like this, it was a great turn-out. The twenty-four people who attended could not say enough great things about how beautiful Griffith is, and how supported we were with help from the community for our event. The Griffith Fire Department came out and grilled hot dogs, with proceeds going to the Historical Society, and the Griffith Girl Scout troop 15476 provided complimentary hot chocolate for visitors.

Even our signature Santa in a Caboose made an early stop to be available for the kids and a member of our Town Council played a major role in this event.

These visitors from the Calumet and Chicagoland  areas toured our Griffith Historical Park with its Depot Museum, Railroad Cars and Watch Tower. Inside the depot and railroad cars they were treated to a verbal and visual historical display of our town’s origins and railroading heritage presented by Karen Kulinski, our museum curator. 

The group was also able to visit our Franklin Center Museum with its artifacts and displays of our town’s history, and stop for lunch or refreshments in town before going back home.

Developed from an interview with Toni Rickert, Vice President, and Karen Kulinski, Secretary and Museum Curator, of the Griffith Historical Society.