UPDATED 7:09 p.m.
Years of planning, fundraising, and building have now officially paid off for the Abingdon Historical Society.
The society will cut the ribbon on its new home at 113 South Main Saturday, while the Abingdon Road Knights car show is held nearby.
“Bunny” Dalton is the new president of the Abingdon Historical Society, and tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL the two and half years worth of work leading to that day was almost too much, but in a good way.
“We started storing items in a basement, and then the Sandoval family gave us the old Kindergarten building,” said Dalton. “We had that, we bought a second building. When we really said we were going to do this, and we asked the community to donate, we were overwhelmed with the amount of items that we got.”
And Dalton was one of the original members of the society, and even she had no idea how many Abington residents were trying to keep the city’s history alive.
Jim Davis is also an original member, having just stepped down as its president after 25 years in the role. He still plans on volunteering and being a member.
“The quantity (of items donated) kind of surprised us, and that’s why we decided to build a new building,” said Davis. “We have displays on some of the factories — not all of them, because there were just too many in Abingdon at one time. We have displays for all of the Medal of Honor recipients (from Abingdon). We have other men and women that were in the service.”
One such military item on display is Japanese rifle that was captured in the Philippines — one of the items Davis says he’s most proud of.
The Abingdon Historical Society building officially opens Saturday at 4:00 p.m., while the ribbon-cutting will be at 4:30 p.m.
It will be the first time in years the historical society’s artifacts will be open to the public to view.
