(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal," I'm Steve Kendall.

The Welcome Center and Fulton County Museum has been tracking the history and the people of Fulton County for several hundred years.

And our guests today are John Swearingen and Julie Brink from the Welcome Center and the Fulton County Museum.

John, give us the history because as I said, this goes back, there have been multiple versions of the museum and as time has gone on, you've added things, changed things, lots of things also Give us the history of the Fulton County Museum from its start to where we are today.

- Right, The Pioneer Association of Fulton County was the very first group, this would've been right after the Civil War, these folks formed.

And in 1883, they officially created the Pioneer Association, and you had to be a person who lived in Fulton County in 1850 when it became a county to be in the group.

And then of course, over the years, their ancestors, their descendants became members.

- Become members, yeah, yeah.

And so when this first formed, where was the museum or what was the museum at that point?

Obviously they met, but did they have a physical location, building that became the museum in those days?

- They had two meetings a year, one in the summer at the fairgrounds with a picnic, and one in the wintertime at the courthouse.

And that would have public speakers come and talk about their family history.

And that is where the first museum started in the tower of the old courthouse, which is still standing.

And it was just a small display case, which is now in our museum, and grew from there.

As people died, they donated objects to the collection.

- Yeah, and one of the things as we'll talk about in Fulton County, obviously a lot of agriculture out there, it's great farm country, but it also has railroad history and other history as well.

When you start to look at that, so now you've got this display case, that's the first thing.

What's the next phase that happens then in the museum's development?

- In 1969, the group rebranded itself as the Fulton County Historical Society and moved to a old building that was first, the high school, Wauseon's first high school, and then it became the county's first hospital, and then an apartment building, and that was donated to us.

And we slowly took over the rooms and turned that into a museum until the current museum.

- Okay, yeah.

And as you start to collect things over time, and obviously we're going back 100 and some years, what are the things that people began to donate?

Because obviously any item is historical, it's cultural, it tells a story about the people and the area.

So what are some of the first things that came in after that initial display case?

- The very first objects in the collection from 1921 are the Ohio records of all the Civil War veterans.

And then the big collections then came from the GARs as they disbanded.

Once you die out, there's no more GAR.

So for example, in Fayette, all of the rifles from their group came to us.

And it turns out they're all from the same unit, the 47th OVI- - [Steve] Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Grand Army of the Republic, GAR, yeah, okay.

- [John] And their initials are carved into the stocks.

- [Steve] Really?

- [John] So we know exactly who owned each one.

- [Steve] Oh my gosh.

- [John] So from there, we went to your folks that like to collect stones that they find in the fields.

And so the prehistoric objects would've been the next type of thing collected.

And then clothing, of course, all of the little old ladies that died and left their collections to the museum.

- [Steve] Well, but they tell a story, all of those things tell a story of the people.

- [John] I don't know how many pairs of bloomers we need though.

(everyone laughing) - [Steve] You can trace the history of, well, anyway.

Yeah, okay, we won't talk about, well, we will eventually, but yeah, so it's interesting.

Now, Julie, and obviously you're dealing with helping promote this activity, the museum and everything else about Fulton County.

So when you go out and talk about the museum, how do you describe it to potential visitors or groups that may want to be coming through Fulton County to go to a tour or do whatever?

- Well, the first thing I say is how much I've learned since I've been working with them.

But our museum, and I say ours, it's unique for a county museum.

I think people are genuinely very surprised when they go there and just see what a piece of art the museum is in itself.

And so it's very, very easy to promote.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's probably true because people, when they come through, they have an idea of what a county historical museum's gonna be like, oh, it's gonna be this and this, and probably not that exciting.

But then they walk in and see a lot of things they didn't expect.

Now, John, you've moved us up like to the 1960s.

So what happens after that?

Because obviously you're still working towards your permanent location at this stage.

- This is my 15th year of employment here.

And my first job was to get them out of the building they were in.

- [Steve] Yeah, and why was that?

Why did you wanna move?

- A very small space, the collection had to be restricted quite a bit.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- And they didn't want to be always considered a Wauseon museum, Ah, okay, so we really wanted to get out.

- [Steve] Become more, broaden it out towards Fulton County, not just the Wauseon Historical Museum.

And that happens because of the location, and Wauseon being the largest, I believe, the largest city in Fulton County.

So yeah, yeah.

So as you go doing it, because obviously when you collect all these things, you can't display everything you have and you probably wouldn't want to all at one time, but there are things that, oh, if we only had a little more space, we could set this up and it'd be so nice we could add to that display.

So you're getting ready to move out of that building, so how did you go about then finding the next location?

- We worked with the county commissioners to maybe take over a building that they'd abandoned.

And then we looked at building a new building, but it was so expensive.

And so this just fell in our laps, that the state of Ohio was requiring a new EOC, which is the Emergency Operations Center.

And the other offices that were required for the county involved with emergencies.

The visitor bureau was a new idea that we'd never had before, and the ODOT was looking for a place to put a new facility.

And so all these things came together with the state of Ohio, the county commissioners and us two nonprofits, sharing the same facility.

Otherwise, I don't think any of those things could have happened on their own.

And Governor Kasich at the time was really promoting- - [Steve] Consolidating and collaboration and efficiency, that kinda thing, sure, sure.

- [John] So we raised a lot of money for our part of the building.

And it's really been incredible.

- And where is that building located?

I mean, if somebody wanted to find it now, because I think I know where it is, but for people who may have driven through Fulton County or Wauseon or whatever, and said, oh, I know there's a museum around here What's the location right now?

- [John] It's 8848 Ohio 108.

So if you've ever been to a horse show at the fairgrounds, it's right across from the pavilion.

And I always tell people it's Exit 34, but not this summer.

- [Steve] Because the exit's probably not active at the moment.

- [John] On the turnpike.

- [Steve] So the alternate route is 20A or something like that out there.

- [John] What are the other two?

- [Steve] What's the suggested way to get there?

- [Julie] Well, and you get off Exit 25 and Exit 30.

- [Steve] Okay, the opposite would be like what Montpelier.

- [Julie] No, they're all Fulton County.

- [Steve] Oh, they're all Fulton County.

So you are not in Williams County.

- [Julie] We've got three exits in Fulton County.

- [Steve] Yeah, okay, so it's still easy to get to, basically, it's just that the closest exit off the turnpike is under renovation, working on the toll situation, all that.

Because obviously, you get tourism groups, so we can come back and talk about, you've got a lot of events that go on regularly and then a lot of special events.

So when we come back, we can talk about what you're doing currently.

And then in our final segment there's a real special activity about the Yellowstone Trail.

When I first saw it, I thought, Yellowstone Trail, what does that have to do with Ohio?

Last time I looked, Yellowstone was kind of out in the northwest somewhere.

But we'll be back in just a moment with John Swearingen and Julie Brink here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal."

Our guests are from the Fulton County Museum and Fulton County Visitor Center, John Swearingen and Julie Brink.

And thank you again for being here.

Julie, we were talking a little bit, obviously, the museum has moved into this new facility that John described and a group came from, because people come from all over the world and visit, But there was one group that took a particular liking to the facility, so tell that story a little bit because they really liked the way the museum looked, to the point where they really, really liked the way it looked.

- Well, they were from Moldova, which is over by Ukraine, and they just thought our rural model matched theirs, closely.

So they just came, they brought a delegation over and spent a whole day with us.

And it was lots of, lots of fun, none of them spoke English.

But we managed to be able to communicate pretty well with 'em and showed them the county and some of the main points of the county, and how we get around and how we market, so it was just lots of fun.

- Yeah, and that's pretty impressive though, the fact that came and said, oh, look at this, there's a model of how we can do this and substitute all the Moldovan approaches, that's really cool.

- [Julie] It was, it was, it was.

- That they looked and said, and plus, and it's interesting you described the fact that nobody spoke the other language, but you were able to communicate and make things clear, that's a great story.

But I guess it shows you the way you're telling the stories, the way the displays are set up, reach people, even if they can't read the display placards or understand the audio and the video they're running by.

Obviously, you have a lot of special events, you have ongoing events.

I know this past weekend, we're recording this the day after Mother's Day, you had a large Mother's Day event there and obviously, pretty successful.

Because I noticed online it said it was sold out.

So talk a little about that, it was obviously successful, you'll probably do something similar again next year.

So talk about the Mother's Day event.

- Yes, so when we left the old museum, we kept it, and now we're using it for events.

And so this is what we do two or three times a year, different teas are held at the museum.

And this one we had Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and this one was sold out actually, at least a month ahead of time.

And I had a lady come in last week and wanted to buy a ticket.

- [Steve] So you had to say, sorry, you're 30 days too late.

- The events this year have been crazy and sold out.

We did a huge dinner theater on the train and we did Murder Mystery on the Train.

And these teas are related, this last one was fashion on the 21st Century Limited, and it's just been incredible.

- Yeah, well, talk about that because a lot of people don't realize that the rail lines that run through Toledo and head west, run through, those are the old New York, Central Pennsylvania railroad lines, which have a huge amount of history.

And to the point where I know the one stretch near Stryker, which is not necessarily Fulton, that's Williams County.

one of the straightest, flattest stretches in the entire country and used for testing a lot.

And I think it's interesting that you think, oh, okay, we're out in all this flat land and here it is.

But the history of railroading obviously, is very much a part of Fulton County.

So talk a little about that and the fact that you are currently holding an event which took place also this past weekend, but now apparently, popularity is gonna say let's do it for a little while longer.

So talk about that.

- Yes.

Another thing I think is crazy that we had trolleys running here.

People know San Francisco and the trolleys, but they don't realize we had two different lines running through Fulton County.

And if you go to the Spaghetti Warehouse, this is not a paid advertisement, they have one of those cars where you can eat.

Inside the... - [Steve] Inside the restaurant, yeah.

- Yeah, and so those two lines that ran west from Toledo and then the Wabash Cannonball, the famous Wabash Cannonball, ran through Fulton County.

And ruined Barney Oldfield's race track where he used to race bikes.

- [Steve] Oh, that's right, yeah.

- When they came through.

And then what is now the Norfolk and Southern, the DT&I and the New York Central Lines are other two lines that ran through the county.

And the exhibit took a lot longer than we realized to put together when I delved into how many times it changed hands, why it changed hands, on and on and on.

- Yeah, well, there's the DT&I, if you drive through Fulton County, you'll pass through the rail is built up high, and you'll pass through not really a tunnel, but it's an underpass.

You go through it, it's like that's the DT&I running from Detroit all the way down to Kentucky to haul coal up to Henry Ford's Rouge Power plant to make Model T's.

So, I mean, history, it's funny, yeah.

So you talk about the rail stuff and obviously you have sort of a smaller version of that going on right now at the museum, so talk a little bit about that as well.

- [John] So the history of those five lines is in a timeline exhibit that goes around the perimeter of our special ed gallery.

And then the middle portion I designed for fourth grade level.

And there are cartoon characters of different people that were related to the railroad.

So one's a conductor, one is a railroad trained worker from out in the yard.

And we have an engineer, a lady that delivered the mail every day, to one of the post offices.

She was the post mistress.

We have a first telegrapher, female telegrapher, from Fulton County in the exhibit.

And then a lady who lived in one of the depots and would've experienced what the hobos were like coming- - [Steve] Riding rails.

- [John] Yeah.

- [Steve] Riding the rails, wow.

- [John] So it's all designed at their level so they can understand the different jobs related to railroad.

- [Steve] Yeah, that's really cool.

And you've got an active, like a display of small, of trains there and you can see all of that too.

- [John] And I had my volunteers build a replica of one of the towers, switching towers, so that the kids could get up high and look down onto their tracks.

- [Steve] Just like it would be if they were, that's really cool, that is really cool.

- [John] They didn't know what was going on when I asked them to build that.

- [Steve] Well, because you look at that and we take for granted, we see railroads running through and obviously a lot fewer than in the old days because obviously a lot of things move in a different way now.

But it is interesting though that that kind of history still relates to children, they can understand that, they can see that and realize, oh, that's why that's there, that's what that does, oh, that's what that person does.

So it's a great educational tool as well.

So you're gonna hold that over for a while yet, right?

It's still gonna be out there?

- Yes, I think we need to keep it open till next year because it's just been, every day there's been people in to see this exhibit - [Julie] And what's really been fun is all the kids that are coming to see this train exhibit that has been really lots of fun.

- [Steve] Well, and you probably get people who say, oh, I remember such and such in this town.

And I used to go down and watch the whatever, the passenger train or ride, because there were passenger trains back then, that ran through Wauseon Delta and east and west to Toledo and then to Chicago.

So you probably get of all ages, people relating to that particular display.

- [John] Yeah, you have three different groups of people.

You have those who are railroad buffs, those that are history buffs, and then people who love model trains.

It's totally different audiences and they're all interested.

- [Steve] Yeah, hey, well yeah, that's a perfect exhibit then, it really approaches all of these different groups and in the process, tells them the story about Fulton County and the people that live there.

So yeah, pretty nice.

Okay, well we come back, I know you've got another special exhibit, another special activity, the Yellowstone Trail.

And we can talk about that when we come back.

Back in just a moment with John Swearingen and Julie Brink here on "The Journal."

You're with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are John Swearingen from the Fulton County Museum and Julie Brink from the Fulton County Visitors Bureau.

And Julie, one of the things when we were talking about doing this program, you sent me some information and it said Yellowstone Trail.

And my first thought was what does the Yellowstone Trail have to do with Fulton County?

Because we think Yellowstone, we're thinking northwest part of the country.

So explain to us why the Yellowstone Trail has meaning for Fulton County and obviously more than just how we perceive it right now.

- Well, it started out actually being the Good Road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound, that's what they called it.

- [Steve] Yellowstone Trail's a lot catchier.

- And they decided they needed to rename it because that was too long.

And this runs from Washington and into, my mind just went blank.

- [Steve] Massachusetts - [Julie] Massachusetts, right.

- So that's when the Yellowstone Trail, it's right off the actual route.

Because it was a very a popular resort at the time, or not resort, but attraction at the time, they thought Yellowstone Trail would be a good name for this road.

And so that's how it became the Yellowstone Trail.

- Yeah, and you can see behind us, we put up the map of this and they say, most people probably had no idea of this road under whatever names it was called.

And yet, as we were talking a little bit before, it was developed about the same time as roads were being built, this was contemporary, contemporaneous to Route 30, the Lincoln Road, that kinda thing.

And yet this one hasn't gotten the same kind of traction and notoriety that the Lincoln Highway has.

- Correct, and and they were both developed in 1912 or started in 1912.

They fight over who was the first- - [Steve] Who was first, sure, of course.

- [Julie] But this road actually started in South Dakota, and a bicyclist and then trying to get to the train to chew the rails and they were just starting to crank out cars.

And there was just no good road to drive these cars on.

And Joe Parmley, Parmley was the one who actually started the Yellowstone Trail, his Studebaker got stuck in the mud.

- [Steve] Ah, and that's when he decided- - [Julie] That is when he decided it was time- - [Steve] We need a better road.

- Right, we need better roads.

And so private people, there was no county or state or national, federal funding for this.

- Program for this.

- So they started to build their own and it was going to the west and it was going to the east gradually.

- So probably as they're building this, each section was probably, there was no standard probably, so some of them were probably made out of some material, another one made out of a different stone, interesting approach.

- But just trying to get it drivable for the now automobiles.

And people made it a social event.

The towns, they'd get together, they'd work on these together.

And they actually had what they called sociability runs, where they would test these roads with the current cars to see how- - [Steve] To see if they were actual drivable.

- Right.

- Well, and it's interesting because the towns obviously could see an advantage to connecting themselves to the outside world for tourism and business and everything else.

So it made a lot of sense to do it, but the idea that each town would build its own piece of the road or each community would be- - [Julie] There was no national funds- - [Steve] Yeah, no standards.

- [Julie] Available.

- So as this thing evolves over time and as we look at it, obviously it runs along the Great Lakes, then through the Dakotas out to the Northeast, when did it sort of become then the Yellowstone Trail in terms of collectively calling it that?

- [Julie] Was that 19, was it around 1917?

- [John] World War I - [Julie] When they started actually trying to promote it and it was just too long to say A Good road from Puget Sound to Plymouth Rock.

But so they just stole the Yellowstone Trail because it was a popular place to go and it just gained popularity because of the name.

- Yeah, now if we look in Fulton County, where would we see remnants of this road right now?

Because obviously, it angles through Fulton County, to Indiana - [Julie] Route Two.

- [Steve] Route two?

Oh, okay, that's the Yellowstone Trail, okay.

Wow.

And so it passes through then a lot of towns we'd be familiar with, like- - [Julie] Correct.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- [Julie] Wauseon, Archbold.

Well actually, we're promoting it from Hicksville to Sandusky right now.

- [Steve] Okay, sure, yeah.

- [Julie] And hopefully we'll get it across all of Ohio at some point in time.

But right now our focus is on northwest Ohio.

- Yeah, so when you talk about this, are you looking for support to help promote that?

Or what's the plan for that to make sure people are more aware of it and the historical nature of it?

- [Julie] Well, because we're gonna be celebrating our 250th birthday, the Yellowstone Trail runs into US250 Ohio.

So we're partnering with them.

- [Steve] Okay, that's the Sandusky connection then.

- Yeah, and so we're hoping to get a grant, they're offering grants, that we can use towards promoting the Yellowstone Trail and US 250 Ohio.

- Yeah, because we take for granted now that we can drive just about anywhere in the country on a Interstate of four, eight, 12 lanes, whatever it is, but back then you were lucky if you had one muddy road that went anywhere.

- Well, and that was the point of building this road, to make it drivable with the current automobiles.

Now they're just bringing it back to life, the Yellowstone Trail, to slow people down.

It's a good road, get off the expressway, let's discover small town america.

- Yeah, and see the scenery.

Because obviously when you're on an interstate, you're kind of like zoned, the roads are straight, a few curves.

There's not a lot of embellishment along the side, not a lot of entertainment.

Whereas you go through these small towns, you discover things like the Fulton County Museum or whatever, a restaurant, a store, and things like that.

- [Julie] Well, and Sauder Village is on the Yellowstone Trail.

So we're promoting all the attractions that are on the Yellowstone Trail.

- Yeah, and as you said, it's a good way for people to take a step back from, oh, I'm just making sure I get from A to B as fast as I can and enjoy the trip a little bit more.

- [Julie] Stop and smell the roses.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

and you look at this and again, we see the map behind this, just how connected that was through a lot of places that probably were wide open spaces back then.

I mean, you talk about South Dakota, it's still a little wide open, even parts of Northwest Ohio, it's fairly quiet out in some of those areas.

So this was a way to connect all of those and bring modern transportation and the activity through there, 'cause otherwise it was the railroads and the railroads of course, didn't go through every town in Fulton County and weren't connected to every tow.

- [Julie] But it was really the development of automobiles.

- [Steve] That that made this, yeah, drove this through.

Well, and it's funny, some of the names, Barney Oldfield, we think of as a car driver, but he was a bicycle racer before he became a race car driver.

As you move through this now, so is there a timeline to really establish the Yellowstone Trail in people's minds?

Or is it just an ongoing?

- [John] Some states are better than others.

- [Julie] Yes, and we've been working on it for two years, and only have gotten so this far, no pun intended, to Sandusky and still trying to get the people in Northwest Ohio, the visitor bureaus and such, tuned into this.

- [Steve] To jump on board with it, sure, sure.

Because anything that is historical like that, that connects people to their past and to the fact that the road still exists, we just know it as other names.

- [John] And we're marking them, right?

We're trying to get people to put up the signs.

- [Julie] We've got them through Fulton County.

But yes, we're trying to get Toledo, it runs by the Toledo Museum of Art.

I mean, there's a lot of nice, they did reroute the Yellowstone Trail by the way- - [Steve] A little bit, yeah.

- [Julie] A little bit.

And that was not uncommon.

- [Steve] Sure, sure, since things developed and that sort of thing.

And people can obviously, and can look at the website to find out more about that, and also too, everything about the Fulton County Museum as well.

So Julie, John, thank you so much for being on here.

And make sure people, just Google Fulton County Museum and the Visitors Bureau, you can find out all this good information.

So thank you so much for coming.

- [Julie] Thanks for having us.

- You're welcome, thank you.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time, goodnight and good luck.

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