The St. Charles Historical Society has kicked off its campaign to raise $750,000 to help it move out of City Hall into a shuttered savings and loan building downtown.
Society executive director Barbara Martin said the organization’s major goal for several years has been to acquire its own building. The group set its sights on the former St. Charles Savings and Loan at 2nd and Walnut Streets when the two-story building became available this summer.
“This what we’ve been devoting all our energies to,” Martin said. “It’s our main focus.”
A needs assessment study this year found that the society needed about 12,000 square feet to operate properly. The society’s entire museum, library and offices are located in a 1,600-square-foot room on the first floor of City Hall, where it has been since the building opened in 1940.
Councilmen have said St. Charles could use the society’s space at City Hall and have pledged to give the organization $50,000 a year in motel tax funds to help it move out.
In the meantime, the society is expected to inherit the Dunham-Hunt Museum and its collections as per the will of area matriarch Jane Dunham, who died this year. Acting as an intermediary, the City Council voted last week to transfer to the society the title for 1840s home at 3rd and Cedar Avenues. Martin said the society has no immediate plans for the museum.