Larned Scout Museum Recovery

Out towards the middle of Kansas, an 83 year old man named Charles Sherman ran a Boy Scout Museum.  It was not very aesthetically remarkable, but was remarkable in content and the extremely rare memorabilia it contained.  The museum was packed with Boy Scout and Girl Scout artifacts, some more than 100 years old - dated back to when the Boy Scouts were founded. The museum had 85 mannequins and 95 displays. About 2:00 pm Friday April 1st, 2016 the museum caught fire and it is believed that over 95% of the items destroyed.
Charles is a friend of mine, my family and of scouting.  He lived in the upstairs of the museum.  

Charles believes there was about $500,000 in memorabilia on display and that only 5-10% was recovered. Even with that high loss rate, Charles only has one goal, to reopen the museum. Even though the building was insured, the cost of insuring the contents was cost prohibitive. For Charles to be successful, he needs new displays that featured the items.  He needs to mannequins to displays his uniforms.

We drove out the Saturday April 2nd and found something remarkable.  At least a dozen members of the small community of Larned, KS were working hard to salvage anything they could.  I watched as the day went along while this community, who had little contact with Boy Scouts or any understanding to the value of the memorabilia, came together. They found two locations to move the salvage to and got tables from all over the town. They began conservation when the conservator from the county museum came by, stayed and then contacted the fort museum for help. A local appliance dealer provided, delivered and hooked up 2 brand new freezers to remove the moisture from damaged books.   

Any donation helps as we try to recover from this community wide loss.  Thank you all.