CLIENT: WABASHA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Fundraising for Historic Preservation: Reads Landing School

HISTORIC PRESERVATION GRANT series

When Bluestem Heritage Group began working with the Wabasha County Historical Society, our first project was to secure fund (via a Minnesota Cultural Heritage grant) to conduct a Historic Structures Report for the Reads Landing School, their museum and administrative home.

The HSR told them in detail what they suspected: the 1879 building was in urgent need of repairs. The windows needed restoration, the entire masonry envelope needed tuckpointing and repair, and the eaves and cornices needed restoration. Our next Minnesota Cultural Heritage grant was for construction documents.

We knew the final grant, for construction, would be a large request, so we sought to raise matching funds through other sources. We wrote grants to a community fund in Rochester and a family foundation serving organizations in southern Minnesota. We raised individual contributions from the surrounding community to demonstrate community support of the restoration project. By the time we wrote and secured the grant for construction, we had raised nearly $400,000 for the project, which was completed in 2014.