DE PERE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The De Pere Historical Society has a new home in an old place.
The organization opening the doors to its new heritage center this weekend, for an open house.
The White Pillars Museum, De Pere’s oldest commercial building, has returned home.
“It’s a strong part of the community, the Historical Society acquired the building in the early 1970s and it did serve as our home for a little over 50 years. It became important in terms of the historic preservation of the community,” said McKim Boyd with the historical society.
It was more than 10 years ago when the De Pere Historical Society began talking about creating a bigger space to celebrate and showcase the city and area’s history. Years of planning and fundraising have finally come together with the construction and now completion of the De Pere Heritage Center.
According to Boyd, “The space that we were in really didn’t allow us to do any inside programming. We could no longer bring a school group in, for instance, ’cause the space was too small. Our storage was very limited. As a result, we had things stored in five or six different locations. Now everything’s being brought back in or has been brought back into our new facility here.”
In addition to housing the White Pillars Museum, which was restored to include the original pillars, the Heritage Center now provides enough space for a research room and an archives area on the lowest level of the three story building.
Nearly two centuries of De Pere history is archived in the basement of the center, pieces that will eventually be displayed in the main parts of the building. The first and second floors of the building will be used to for educational programming and other events, with De Pere’s history on full display.
“We won’t officially open until April or May once our fundraising has been completed. And we actually have our display cases and which are gonna be changing out on a regular basis. But we will begin doing some programming either in December or early January,” added Boyd.
The De Pere historical society has about $475,000 left to raise to put the finishing touches on the inside of the center.
But it will welcome the community to an open house Saturday, November 7 from noon until 2 p.m..
