The Rudyard Historical Society began in April of 1994. We acquired the local railroad depot, moved it to a permanent location, and renovated it for a museum in which to house both the written and physical history of the hi-line towns of Joplin, Inverness, Rudyard, Hingham, Gildford, and Kremlin.
One of the activities is the bringing together of the written history of the communities from several newspapers that were printed along the hi-line beginning in 1910. That requires spending hours, months, and even years reading microfilm, typing of the stories, and making hardcopies of the information and storing it in vertical files, as well as in the computer. Some of this project has already been done by members and is on going and constantly updating. This project was originally started by Jan DeLaney in the years prior to the formation of the Rudyard Historical Society.
Different society members interview the few old timers who remain from the homesteading days. That info is typed up and housed in the museum. This has created a genealogy interest. We have kept copies of Obituaries, Marriages, and the happenings of interest to assist in research. We hope to have family members work with us in creating a genealogy chart of our homesteaders and their families from the area. I encourage anyone interested to help us with their families chart, including a few pictures of their family. We supply an 18″ X 18″ area to display a family genealogy chart. Come join our fun!