Historical Society working on building restoration plans

Managing Director Michelle Gray provided an update on the effort during Tuesday’s annual meeting.

The project has been several years in the world as Society has been awarded construction funds from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission.

Gray said the cost estimates came in prior to the pandemic. “Inflation has definitely caused a lot of issues with materials and labor,” she said. “We had to kind of renegotiate our project.”

The goal now, she said, is to focus on restoring the west side of the building, which is in the “most disrepair.

“(We) really need that project to happen,” she said.

She also highlighted a couple donations to the collection of special note.

“We will be receiving Beaty portraits from the David Beaty estate,” she said.

That is coupled with a Beaty furniture donation from the Fenton History Center.

“We will have a very nice collection,” she said of those items.

She also said that a Wetmore secretary desk came in two trips from the Philadelphia area. “We are serving the community as a historical preservation agency,” she stressed, and are “working diligently to continue to do so.”