Civil War Display


Peggy Bales puts the finishing touches on a mannequin, which is part of a major new summer exhibition on Lake City’s role in the American Civil War, at Hinsdale County Museum.
Not founded until 1874, Lake City’s participation in the war was necessarily limited, although a majority of the town and county’s earliest settlers — representing both the Union and Confederate forces — were Civil War veterans.
Highlights of the summer exhibit, which opens Memorial Day Weekend, is a day-to-day recount of the war’s activities in Kansas 1861-1864, kept in diary form by Henry C. Olney. Olney later owned and edited Lake City’s SILVER WORLD newspaper in the 1870s.
Also included in the display is a collection of saddles, muskets and sabers which were used by enlisted men in both the Northern and Southern armies.