On Wednesday, December 11, 2018 from 4:00-6:00 pm the Rice County Historical Society will celebrate our members and volunteers.

Please join us as we celebrate the season-and our volunteers and members. We hope you can make time in your busy holiday schedule to stop by the museum to enjoy some refreshments and so we can thank you for your continued support. Volunteers and Members are the ones who “make it happen” at the Rice County Historical Society. Thank you to all who made it a great year!

This event is free for volunteers and members – both current and those interested in becoming volunteers and/or members.

For more information about this event call (507)332-2121.

Please join the Rice County Historical Society for a Christmas Open House at the former home of Alexander and Mary Elizabeth Faribault, located at its original location in Faribault.  The historic home will be open to the public on Friday, December 6, 4:00-7:00 pm and Saturday December 7, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

Admission is free and open to the public!

The house will be decorated with the French-Canadian holiday traditions of the Faribault family.  The family celebrated the holidays in this home in the early 1850s.

The dining room table will display a hand crocheted table cloth set for Christmas dinner with a candied apple centerpiece made with apples donated by Trumps Orchard.  Docents will give tours and answer questions about the home, as well as the life and times of the Faribault family.

We also invite you to visit the upstairs portion of the house, to see Mary Elizabeth’s sewing room and the bedrooms.  In the west end of the second floor is a museum with Faribault family artifacts as well as the Faribault Business exhibit. Many local businesses are featured in this exhibit including Nutting Truck and Castor, Brand Peony Farm, The Olympia, and Ochs.

This event is FREE and open to the public. No reservation is required. Please call the museum at 507-332-2121 if you have any questions.

“Sweet Land” (2005)

Thursday, November 7, 2019, 7pm

“Sweet Land” tells the story of Inge Altenberg (Elizabeth Reaser ), a German mail-order bride sent to Minnesota in the paranoid and nationalistic days following the First World War to meet her future husband, Olaf Torvik (Tim Guinee), a Norwegian bachelor farmer. Along the way, she discovers love, hard work, friendship, and how to make pie just like an American.

(The movie was filmed just north of the twin cities.)

Rated PG. Drama/Historical period drama ‧ 1h 50m.

Free Admission for RCHS Members & guests

Light refreshments of popcorn, coffee, and water
will be available

Space is limited. Please call to reserve your seat. 507-332-2121

Thursday, October 24, 2019

5:00 pm Social Hour; 6:00 pm Dinner; 7:00 pm Program
Held at the Faribault Elks Club 

The Rice County Historical Society’s 2019 Fall Banquet and Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, October 24, at the Faribault Elks Club (131 Lyndale Avenue North) in Faribault.  The banquet will begin with a social hour at 5:00; dinner will be served at 6:00.  There will be a brief business meeting as required by our bylaws at 7:00, followed by a presentation by Rodger and Richard Fette who will share the history of Fette Electronics in Faribault, MN. The business meeting will include a vote on proposed changes to our bylaws (See below).

Please join us for an eventful evening.  The meal will be catered by Arna Farmer Catering and Cakes and will boast a Pasta Bar, including lasagna with meat (vegetarian lasagna available upon request), ziti pasta with choices of marinara with meat sauce and chicken alfredo sauce, tossed salad, assorted breads, and assorted desserts.

Tickets for this event are $20.00 for RCHS and Chapter/Partner members and $25.00 for non-members. Tickets can be purchased from any RCHS board members or at the Rice County Historical Society, located at 1814 NW 2^nd Ave. in Faribault. Please reserve a ticket by Friday, October 18.

The Rice County Historical Society is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to discover, preserve and share the history of Rice County and the State of Minnesota.

For more information, call (507) 332-2121.

RCHS Board Proposes Bylaw Changes

Earlier this year, as part of a routine review of all RCHS documents and policies, the Rice County Historical Society Board of Directors reviewed our bylaws and noted that they had last been updated in 2003. Now, 16 years later, the Board is proposing some updates of the bylaws. These changes are designed to make the bylaws more inclusive of some of our existing policies and make further changes easier to make, such as creating new membership categories and adding new partner organizations. Included in the changes are some small edits, such as replacing “him” with “him/her”, and a few larger edits. Perhaps the most significant change is with the Chapter Relations portion of the bylaws.

Since RCHS’s bylaws were last updated, there have been two significant changes within the county’s museum community. First, a new organization has been established that wishes to become an official chapter of the Rice County Historical Society, the Dundas Historical Society. Second, the Northfield Historical Society and RCHS have developed an expanded agreement that transitioned NHS from a “Chapter” to a “Partner” of RCHS. The proposed bylaws allow these opportunities.

All members attending the Annual Meeting will be asked to vote on these changes. Click HERE to see the proposed Bylaws.

If you have any questions please call the museum at 507-332-2121.