Upon arriving, we realized that the door was locked. However, after ringing the doorbell, we were…read morewarmly greeted and ushered inside the Historical Society building. Upon entering, we were asked to sign the guestbook and were quickly told about the books and other items that were for sale, and as we signed the guestbook, the gentleman that let us in quickly stated, "Hi I am David and I am your tour guide". We did not know that there was a tour guide, as we thought this was going to be a self guided program where we could look around at our own pace. At that time my wife and daughter started to have a small conversation very quietly to themselves and walked away not to interrupt and very nice lady came in and said you all need to stick together and can't walk around separate.
Knowing my wife and my daughter are not into history as much as I am, didn't feel any awkwardness in the fact that they wanted to have a private conversation and look at what interested them so when they were told we had to stay together, they decided it was best for them to go to the antique store next-door and hook up with me after I was done.
So that's what we did and I continued to walk around with David, listening to the different stories and explanations of the artifacts located throughout the museum. David was very knowledgeable and very friendly, and told me that he had served 20 years in the Armed Forces, and had met several of the notables that we were talking about, including Mr. Buckles who was the oldest World War I survivor. The only reason I've not given this review 5 stars is that every time I asked David to extrapolate on his information he would say, "I don't know". I asked where he got the data on the American people not wanting peace via the League of Nations in WWI after some discussion of a really cool document showing Woodrow Wilson, his response, "I don't know", that went on through the various rooms until we went upstairs. Upon asking David about the banisters, flooring and wall trim and whether they were original to the 1912 house and getting the same, "I don't t know" decided to let him stick with the information memorized and not ask any more questions, as I felt I was beginning to annoy my tour guide. I felt a little like one of Stonewall Jackson's students at VMI when asking the professor to explain what he just said, having Jackson stop, go back, repeating verbatim what he just mentioned from his memorization of his lesson plan for the day.
I was super interested in the coal items on display but that was the last question I had, because I was cut off with, "I was about ready to tell you the coal stories in the next room, as those items were what I previously selected out of storage to go on display." I never heard the coal stories nor did I hear or come away with knowing where the mine equipment originated. Being right in the middle of mining and the Mine disasters at Monongah in 1907, and Farmington in 1954 and 1968 I thought maybe those were some items pulled from the mine in memory of the miners that came came out. I came wanting to know more about the coal industry and it's history but came away with a more rounded history of the area, mainly due to David sticking to his guns and charging forward with the tour regardless of my questions. Hats off to David, and I thank him for his time, albeit not what I was looking for, it certainly was incredibly interesting and gave a human interest side of things related to the history of the area outside of mining.
