The Champaign County Historical Museum is CLOSED until at least April 6th.  We hope everyone stays safe and we look forward to seeing you when this quarantine is over!!

On Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020 the following were elected to the Champaign County Historical Society Board of Trustees:

L - R (rear): Hayla Parker, Dan Walter (Past President), Terri Marratta (Secretary), Joe Rizzutti, Gregory Harvey (President), Ken Wright (Treasurer), Fred Krift, Charles Emory, Larry Headlee

L - R (front): Beth Adair (Vice President), Dan Gilbert, Candy Gilliam, Bill Bean

CCHS Board of Trustees Meetings are typically held on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 6:00 pm at the Museum.

​2020 Board of Trustees Meeting Dates: 
22 Jan   
26 Feb   
25 Mar   
22 Apr   
Appraisal Fair: Thursday, April 23, 2020
27 May   
24 Jun
22 Jul   
26 Aug     
23 Sep   
21 Oct   
18 Nov (3rd Wednesday)

Interested in joining the Champaign County Historical Society? Click here to learn more!

Museum Holiday Hours
Open Dec. 24th & 31st 10am-12pm
Closed Christmas Day and Jan. 1st

The Champaign County Historical Society Museum will be open the week of Thanksgiving, but there are some changes. 

Tuesday, Nov. 26th,10am-4pm (regular hours)
Wednesday Nov. 27th, 10am-12pm
Closed the rest of the week, Nov. 28th-Dec. 2nd.

The museum will open for our regular hours again on Tuesday, December 3rd.

We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

The Champaign County Historical Museum received “new” benches just in time for last weekend’s Oktoberfest thanks to the Urbana Parks and Recreation Department’s desire to recycle, and Urbana High Vo-Ag teachers Mallory Zachrich and Steve Wilhelm’s desire for a community service project for their students.

When the city donated 12 aging benches to the museum, Historical Society board member Candy Gilliam suggested contacting the school to see whether repairing and painting the benches would qualify as a school project. The teachers responded that it certainly would qualify.

The Historical Society provided the paint and now has 12 refurbished benches for museum visitors.

The Champaign County Historical Museum located at 809 E. Lawn Ave., Urbana, is pleased to announce new and expanded hours. Effective immediately the museum will be open Tuesday - Friday 10 - 4 and Saturday 10 - 2. The museum will be closed on Mondays.

“We sincerely appreciate the voters who came out to support our levy which would have allowed us to hire full-time staff - a director, curator, and custodian,” said Dan Walter, CCHS President. “But since that issue did not pass, we are intensifying our campaign for new memberships and donations and are implementing new fundraising events. Recently these efforts have encouraged our board of trustees to hire a part-time Museum Operations Manager, Cheryl Ogden. This is a one-year post which we hope to extend pending successful fundraising.”

Commissioned originally as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, Captain Mitchell earned his Air Force Wings in 1976 at Williams AFB, Arizona. Throughout his career on active duty and in the reserves, he flew the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and later the C-5 Galaxy, the largest cargo aircraft in the world, throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa. After spending a short time with the FAA, Captain Mitchell had a second career as a commercial airline pilot, flying 9 different airliners for U. S. Airways, later American Airlines. He retired as an active pilot in 2017.

The Champaign County Historical Museum is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization that depends upon donations and dues to preserve, protect, archive and display the artifacts that tell the Champaign County story. The free public museum located at 809 E. Lawn Ave., Urbana. is open to the public from 10 -4 Mondays and Tuesdays.

Jacob Berner
Five experienced appraisers will be positioned in locations throughout the museum to accommodate attendees by describing the history and estimated value of each item presented.

The fifth appraiser highlighted is Jacob Berner of Donnelsville. He has owned and operated Berner’s Auction Gallery since 1997 and auctions about 700 antique items each week. His specialties include fine art, jewelry, antiques and decor, but he has “seen it all.” He is well known in the antique world and looks forward to the Appraisal Fair and helping you learn what your prized possession is worth.

About the event
The price of admission is $20 in advance, $25 at the door and includes one appraisal and a wine and cheese “bistro” provided by Freshwater Farms so that folks can socialize during the event and tour the museum rather than simply wait in line. Regarding the “show” component, an appraiser will be announced at five times throughout the evening; he will then present a special item to those gathered in the main meeting room.

Tickets may be purchased at the museum (Mondays and Tuesdays), at local banks – Civista, First Central National, Peoples, Perpetual, all county Security locations – and online until 11am on April 25th. In addition to benefiting the museum and preserving its artifacts, this will be a fun event for people of all ages to enjoy and hopefully one that will build from year to year. This is an excellent opportunity to have a family heirloom, an item from the attic, or perhaps something found when spring cleaning to be evaluated.