Next meeting:

John Kolb, former Pittsburgh Steelers, "Getting Motivated," Sept. 20, 7:30 p.m. Station Five.

Start Your Engines

If you have never heard the engine of Liberty the Second, here's your chance!

We are starting the engine in a special ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 4, at noon and 2 p.m. at Ice House Park, Conneaut Lake.

Special guests will be Bill Houghton and Brian Simpson, divers who brought the boat up from the bottom of Conneaut Lake 25 years ago! They will be signing copies of the new 25th commemorative edition of Liberty the Second book, specially written to mark the 25th anniversary of bringing the boat up from the bottom of Conneaut Lake. Books are only $10 (plus 60 cents tax).

Local musician Dave McMillin will be there to sing the old and new versions of the Ballad of the LIberty the Second.

We will have hot dogs and pop available to purchase as well as memorabalia. We have Liberty the Second shot glasses, mugs, the special book and more. We will have sweatshirts, t-shirts, bumper stickers, magnets, and more!

We have only about 50 of the Sesquicentennial books left - so if you want one, better get it now!  We also have only 24 shot glasses left. They are engraved with the picture of the Liberty the Second.

Admission is free, so please plan on joining us and bring your children to witness this part of our history.

Also, stop at the museum and see the rest of our artifacts and heritage!

Special Recognition

We want to pay special recogniton to businesses who contributed their time and materials to restoring the Liberty the Second 25 years ago.

Gary Worthingtong provided the list of companies who gave materials and services to rebuild the Liberty engine, drive shaft and gearbox. They are:

Syst-a-Matic Tool and Design; Erie Bearing (Ben Stallsmith), Meadville Forge, The Bolt Place, Chipsco, Peters Heat Treat, Teed's, Winters Plumbing and Heating, Lubiniecki Welding Equipment, Page's Auto Parts, Interstate Battery, Champion Spark Plug, Quaker State Oil, Steve Santa Welding, Reimann's Marina, Tri State Metal Cleaning, Talon, Pennsylvania Tool and Gages Inc., The Warren Co., The Stable Pit and Pub and Budd Miller Ford.

Adopt a Block Update

As you may remember, we started a campaign last year to raise $11,000 to finish painting the rest of our museum to match the front. We have raised nearly enough to paint both the north and south side so the board of directors voted to go ahead with those two sides at this time.

Work started last week with another coat on the front of the building and painting the two sides. We didn't have quite enough money in the desinated accout, but based on our fundraising efforts to date, combined with the money raised from the Cahall Dunne show, the board felt it was better to get the two sides done at the same time!

We are still accepting donations, however. The total cost for the two sides and the one coat in front is about $9,000. We were about $2,500 short (don't have up-to-date total yet), but based on our fund balance, believed it better to go forward.

If you are in town, check it out. It looks beautiful. We will work on raising the balance to do the back side in the future - probably next year.

We appreciate all the support the cmmunity has given us for this project. We think it really transforms the look of the building and makes a great improvement to the beauty of the building. A list of donors who contributed can be found on the donation page (click on about us).

We continue to be positive about the improvements we have made - both inside and outside our museum and the many, many artifacts donated to us. If you haven't been in our museum, please stop by. We are open from 2 to 5 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday or by special appointment by calling George Rutherford at 814-382-7761.

Horse Shoe Tournament

Our annual horse shoe tournament, sponsored by the Lake House Restaurant, has been changed to Oct. 2 at the restaurant.

This has proven to be a fun event as those who have crafted their skills at pitching horseshoes - while raising money to benefit our socity.

Nancy Coleman is chairman of this event. If you have any spare time that day, drop by and check out the action!

Barber Cemetery

Work continues on beautifying the Barber Cemetery. The Byler family of Atlantic has donated lumber and Bill Foust has been busy making pickets for a picket fence to be erected along the side of the cemtery.

Andrew Youngs is doing his senior project at the cemtery and has constructed a trail - hopefully to be used for walking in the future. He also has cleaned the stones to prepare them for repairs.

Dan Jackson of Sunset Memorials has volunteered to donate the apoxy to repair the stones and teach a class in doing that. Anyone interested in helping repair the stones and glue them back together is welcome to learn.

Contact Nancy Colman at 382-2634 or Jane Smith at 337-6377. A date has not yet been set for the class and work, but should be set soon.

 

Pictures from August

Bill Foust and Dave Lynch working on the engine of Liberty the Second in preparation of starting the engine on September 4th.

Painting the south side of the museum as the second phase of the painting project.

Tony Petruso, speaker at the August meeting, told of the railroads coming to Conneaut Lake Park and other railroad history.

Another picture of Tony Petruso, our speaker from the August meeting.

Paul Mushrush, an engineer on the train into Conneaut Lake Park for many years, was a special guest of Tony Petruso at the August meeting.

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