Jefferson County History & Art Center

09/03/2026

🔥☀️ Heatwave? NO PROBLEM. We have our crisp air conditioner going! ❄️

With events being cancelled around town this weekend because of the heat, don’t worry… we’ve got you covered! 😎

Join us TOMORROW, Friday, September 4 for Tunes & Tales: The Musical Legacy of Henry Hart! 🎶

🎟️ FREE ADMISSION
🥤 Refreshments at 5:30 PM
🎵 Concert & discussion at 6:00 PM
❄️ WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING! 😉

Come cool off and enjoy an evening of great music and musical history. Seating is limited, so arrive early!

Bring a friend, escape the heat, and join us tomorrow!

📍 Jefferson County History & Art Center
See you there! 🎶❄️

09/02/2026

Did you know that one of Indiana’s most fascinating 19th-century musicians spent part of his career going up and down the Ohio River?

Henry Hart (1839–1915) was a composer, violinist, bandleader, and one of Indiana’s earliest published African American composers. He performed throughout Indiana and composed numerous songs, waltzes, and other pieces, including his 1874 “Evansville Favorite Waltz.”

THIS Friday, we’re bringing his music back to life!

🎶 Tunes & Tales: The Musical Legacy of Henry Hart
📅 Friday, September 4 | 5:30 PM
📍 Jefferson County History & Art Center
🎟️ FREE ADMISSION, limited seating

Join us for an evening of live music and history featuring pianist and composer Rachel Grimes as we explore the remarkable life and music of Henry Hart.

09/01/2026

🍸 A LITTLE PIECE OF MADISON’S INDUSTRIAL HISTORY 🍸

We are thrilled to have recently received a wonderful collection of Royer Corporation swizzle sticks and products for the Jefferson County Historical Society’s collections!

A BIG THANK YOU to Royer Corporation for helping us preserve unique pieces of Jefferson County’s industrial history! For those who may not know, Royer has a fascinating story.

The company began in 1970 in Hamilton, Ohio, when Roger Royer and Dean Long founded a company called Gadgeteria, Inc. Working initially out of the basement of Royer’s home with a small homemade molding machine, the company produced custom-designed swizzle sticks and advertising specialties for restaurants and businesses.

In 1976, Gadgeteria was purchased by Madison Plastics, Inc. and moved to Madison, Indiana. After a difficult beginning, Guy Kitchens purchased the company in 1977 and renamed it Royer Corporation.

Under Kitchens’ leadership, Royer grew into a major manufacturer of custom plastic products, building relationships with restaurants, resorts, casinos, airlines and other major companies. In 1998, Royer purchased the former U.S. Shoe Factory in downtown Madison and moved its operations there in 1999.

And those little swizzle sticks? They are a pretty remarkable example of Madison-made products that have traveled far beyond Jefferson County. Royer has produced custom swizzle sticks, beverage stirrers, cocktail picks, coasters, promotional products and countless other molded items for customers around the country and the world. All right here in Madison!

🏭 HELP US TELL JEFFERSON COUNTY’S INDUSTRIAL STORY

This collection comes at an exciting time for the Historical Society. We are in the beginning stages of a major remodel of our history gallery, working with an exhibit company to develop new semi-permanent exhibits exploring the people, businesses and industries that have shaped Jefferson County.

More information about these new exhibits will be coming in 2027!

In the meantime, we need YOU. We are looking for items that can help tell that story.

Do you have Royer products at home? Maybe an old swizzle stick from a restaurant or hotel, a promotional item, cocktail pick, meat marker, coaster, advertising piece or something else manufactured by Royer?

We would love to hear from you!

📧 If you have Royer products or other items connected to Jefferson County’s industries that you would consider donating to the Historical Society, please contact our Associate Director, Jared Anderson, at [email protected].

These seemingly small objects can tell big stories about the people, businesses and industries that made Jefferson County what it is today. We’re excited to share those stories with you in the years ahead!

Thank you again to Royer Corporation for this wonderful addition to our collection! 🍸 🍸🍸

08/28/2026

The countdown is on for Tunes & Tales presents The Musical Legacy of Henry Hart! 🎶 🎶 🎶

Join us next Friday, September 4, at the Jefferson County History & Art Center for an evening celebrating the music and remarkable story of Henry Hart (1839–1915), a composer, violinist, and bandleader whose musical career flourished in Evansville and Indianapolis.

Composer and pianist Rachel Grimes will lead an engaging concert and discussion featuring Hart’s joyful 1870s waltzes, performed by Julia Cox (violin), Cecilia Huerta-Lauf (cello), and Rachel Grimes (piano).

Born into slavery in Frankfort, Kentucky, Hart was brought to freedom in Ohio by his parents as a young man. His music offers a fascinating window into Indiana’s musical history and the life of one of America’s earliest published Black composers.

📅 Friday, September 4
📍 Jefferson County History & Art Center
615 W. First Street, Madison, IN 47250

🕠 Reception: 5:30 PM
🎵 Concert & Discussion: 6:00 PM

FREE ADMISSION

The program will be held in the Jefferson Room, with first-come, first-served seating.

A special thank you to the Madison Music Movement for sponsoring this event and helping bring Tunes & Tales to our community.

🎶 Just one week to go — we’ll see you September 4! 🎶

08/26/2026

08/25/2026

Our first Tunes & Tales concert is almost here!

We’re excited for our first Tunes & Tales concert next Friday, September 4, at the Jefferson County History & Art Center featuring the wonderful Rachel Grimes!

Come hear Rachel and friends share the music and stories of early Black musician Henry Hart. This promises to be a really fun evening.
Best of all, it’s FREE! 🎹

A huge thank you to Charlie Rohlfing and Rachel Grimes for pulling this great Madison Courier article together and helping spread the word!

Refreshments: 5:30 PM
Concert: 6:00 PM
📍 Jefferson County History & Art Center
🎟️ FREE admission — limited seating, with attendance capped at 100.

We’ll see you September 4th! Come early and grab a drink, meet Rachel, and grab a seat!

Next Friday, Sept. 4, there will be an opportunity to hear music — and learn the story behind it — that has literally never been heard in more than 100

08/23/2026

Did you know that Madison was home to the third-ever Burger Chef restaurant? 🍔🍟🌭🍦

Long before today’s fast-food landscape took shape, Burger Chef was an Indianapolis-born fast-food chain that became one of the largest hamburger chains in the United States. Founded in 1954 by Frank and Donald Thomas, Burger Chef began in Indianapolis and pioneered many ideas that would later become staples of fast food, including standardized hamburgers, drive-in service, and combination meals.

As the company expanded beyond Indianapolis, Madison became home to the third Burger Chef location, making our community part of the very early history of this iconic Indiana restaurant chain!

Burger Chef would eventually grow to more than 1,000 locations across the country, becoming one of the largest hamburger chains in America before ultimately disappearing from the national scene.

📸 The photographs show the original Madison Burger Chef location downtown, near the river. The Madison Burger Chef would later move to the hilltop as the business continued to grow. The downtown location has had a long history of restaurants and food businesses over the years. Today, that building is home to Chillbilly Treats.

It’s easy to overlook places we pass every day, but buildings like this remind us that Madison’s history isn’t just found in historic mansions and 19th-century storefronts. It’s also found in the restaurants, businesses, signs, and everyday places that shaped life in our community.

What do you remember about Burger Chef in Madison? Did you eat at the downtown location or the hilltop restaurant? Tell us your memories in the comments! 🍔🍟🍔🍟

08/21/2026

Sometimes Jefferson County history takes us back thousands of years. That’s even more evident when you consider this artifact we’d like to share with you today. 🦣 🦣 🦣

This remarkable mammoth tooth is part of the Sam Woodfill Collection at the Jefferson County Historical Society. It was found right here in Jefferson County offering a tangible connection to a time when enormous Ice Age mammals roamed the Ohio Valley.

During the Pleistocene, or Ice Age period, mammoths lived throughout the Midwest. Mammoths were grazers, using their highly specialized teeth to grind grasses and other tough vegetation. Those teeth were built to withstand enormous amounts of wear and that is one reason isolated mammoth teeth are among the more commonly preserved Ice Age fossils.

Southeast Indiana has a fascinating prehistoric story of its own. The Ohio River valley preserves evidence of Ice Age environments and has produced remains of mammoths and other large mammals multiple times through the years. Archaeological and geological records from the region show just how different this landscape was thousands of years ago. Mammoth remains have also been documented in other parts of southern Indiana and along the Ohio River.

From prehistoric creatures that once walked this landscape, to Native American history, pioneer families, industry, railroads, and the people who shaped our communities, our collections help tell the story of this place across thousands of years.

We preserve history… and prehistory! 🦣🏛️

08/21/2026

🎶 TWO WEEKS AWAY! 🎶

The countdown is on for Tunes & Tales presents The Musical Legacy of Henry Hart!

Join us Friday, September 4, at the Jefferson County History & Art Center for an evening celebrating the music and remarkable story of Henry Hart (1839–1915), a composer, violinist, and bandleader whose musical career flourished in Evansville and Indianapolis.

Composer and pianist Rachel Grimes will lead an engaging concert and discussion featuring Hart’s joyful 1870s waltzes, performed by Julia Cox (violin), Cecilia Huerta-Lauf (cello), and Rachel Grimes (piano).

Born into slavery in Frankfort, Kentucky, Hart was brought to freedom in Ohio by his parents as a young man. His music offers a fascinating window into Indiana’s musical history and the life of one of America’s earliest published Black composers.

📅 Friday, September 4
📍 Jefferson County History & Art Center
615 W. First Street, Madison, IN 47250

🕠 Reception: 5:30 PM
🎵 Concert & Discussion: 6:00 PM

FREE ADMISSION

The program will be held in the Jefferson Room, with first-come, first-served seating.

A special thank you to the Madison Music Movement for sponsoring this event and helping bring Tunes & Tales to our community.

🎶 We’ll see you September 4th!

08/19/2026

DID YOU KNOW? The archives at the Jefferson County History & Art Center contains nearly 500 linear feet of history?

One of the things we’re constantly working on behind the scenes at the Jefferson County Historical Society is caring for the incredible amount of history entrusted to our archives.

We currently have approximately 1,150 archival boxes in our collections. Assuming standard 5-inch archival boxes, that represents roughly 480 linear feet of archival material!

That’s nearly 500 feet of history, including documents, photographs, manuscripts, and many other paper based items. That’s equivalent to 16 of the towering columns at the Lanier Mansion laid end-to-end! Wow!

And here’s the really incredible part… this is JUST our paper and document collections. That 480 linear feet does not include the thousands of three-dimensional objects in our museum collections, from clothing and furniture to tools, household objects, artwork, business artifacts, and so much more.

Our archive collection contains more than 100,000 individual documents and archival materials available for YOU to research! 📜

Every box represents people, families, businesses, organizations, communities, and moments that help us understand where we came from.

📦 1,150+ archival boxes
📏 ~480 linear feet of archival material
📜 100,000+ documents and archival materials

WHAT’S IN YOUR ATTIC, BASEMENT, OR CLOSET? 🗃️🗃️

Maybe your club or organization is disbanding and you’re not sure what to do with its records. Maybe your family has recently experienced a death and you’ve inherited boxes of photographs, letters, papers, or documents. Maybe you have a collection of local materials that you aren’t sure is significant to Jefferson County history.

Don’t throw it away before giving us a call!

We’re happy to talk with you about what you have and determine whether it might have a place in our archives. Significant local documents can help tell the story of our community for generations to come.

By donating these materials to the Jefferson County Historical Society, you help ensure they are properly cared for, preserved and shared with the public in perpetuity.

📞 Want to research? Give us a call today! 📞

There is an incredible amount of history waiting to be discovered, and we’re here to help you find it. The history of Jefferson County belongs to all of us. Help us preserve it, and come discover it! 🔍 🔍 🔍