Bureau County Historical Society extends Veterans Exhibit through December

Due to popular demand, the Bureau County Historical Society has announced that its new Veterans Exhibit, which had been scheduled to close May 31, will be extended through mid-December.

The exhibit will be closed, along with the BCHS museums, during the month of June, but is scheduled to reopen on Saturday, July 1, according to BCHS Executive Director Lex Poppens.

“The exhibit has been an extraordinary success,” Poppens said. “We have averaged more than 100 people per week, including students from Logan Junior High School and Princeton Christian Academy.”

The exhibit was created as part of National Military Appreciation Month in May and was reimagined with an enlarged exhibit including new displays of artifacts, uniforms and stories.

The exhibit features five rooms on the first floor of the Newell Bryant Museum at 634 S. Pleasant St. in Princeton. Each room is dedicated to specific conflicts with artifacts, memorabilia and stories of Bureau County veterans.

“We’re using the month of June to do some retooling of this exhibit and planning for the future,” Poppens said. “We keep finding interesting items that have never been on display and want to keep adding as much as we can.”

The primary mission of the Bureau County Historical Society in operating its museum is to educate the public on the history of Bureau County and the surrounding area through the collection, preservation, interpretation and exhibition of artifacts and related materials.

Admission is free to military veterans and active-duty military personnel as well as BCHS members. Groups are encouraged. More information is available online at bureauhistory.org.