What an exciting day at the museum!  It started with the building committee and Lynn Degenhardt working with glass contractors and designing a proposal for a new reading room.  At the same time we were launching a wonderful mapping project.  It has only taken us 175 years to create a map(s) with all of the historic sites, churches, etc. affiliated with the 1839 German-Lutheran immigration to Perry County.  Our museum friend, April Isbell is a GPS expert and an administrator with Girl Scouts of America.  She took a day away from her job to go out in the field with Gerard Fiehler and Warren Schmidt.  They are obtaining longitudes and latitudes for all of the sites that do not have them.  Many of the sites are currently extinct, but it is nice to see where they fit on the landscape.  There are ways to find these sites using maps online, but the accuracy that we wish to have for this project requires hiking through the woods to find the exact readings.  The team just came in for a break, and they are having a wonderful time.  So far they have found coordinates for:  both locations of St. Paul's, Wittenberg; the 1st and 2nd locations of the Log Cabin College; the Seelitz German Cemetery (there is also a location for an early "English" cemetery); early mills; a historic well; and so much more.  This afternoon they will work with Geri Falast on the mysterious Johannesberg settlement site that was served by Pastor C.F.W. Walther in 1839-40.  We know where the settlement was because of archeological work done by Falast.  She found hand forged utensils and German pottery shards. 

This is an exciting time at the museum.  I have trouble finding the time to blog and tell you all what is going on around here.  I hope that you are planning a summer visit, or have your registration forms ready for the October Immigration History Conference.  Please get those forms to us as soon as possible.  I look for the conference to be full by mid-summer.

The picture on today's blog is of April Isbell geographically locating the original "stake" of Altenburg, Missouri.

Take Care, Carla L. Jordan