The Capital Campaign initiated by the Fife Lake Area Historical Society officially ended in September, 2009.

Campaign pledges and contributions totaled $111,979. with most the money coming from individuals and families. The total received at the time of this writing was: $95,400 which includes $12,368 as in-kind contributions.

In addition to providing for the purchase of the Historic 1878 Schoolhouse, several repairs and renovations were made to the Schoolhouse including: painting the exterior, putting in a new water well, installing a new interior floor, constructing a late 1800s schoolroom in the interior and turning the former Library office into a Genealogy Center. Funds were available for the Museum for: putting on new siding, installing a climate control system, repairing structural damage and completing other necessary projects. Also, eventually the Firebarn will be renovated with funds provided by the Campaign.

More documents regarding the Campaign are available in the folder labeled CAMPAIGN ARCHIVES 2007-2009 located in the Genealogical Room of the Schoolhouse.

Arthur O. Van Eck, Chair

September 21, 2009

Friday, June 11, 7pm: The Fife Lake Area Historical Society in cooperation with the Fife Lake Public Library will present the program: The Rise, Fall and Survival of Some Lumbering Communities. Dave Pennington through a slide program will feature the Interlochen area, how it and other former logging villages flourished and nearly faded away. Several of these community “stories” are compared to demonstrate why Traverse City survived and others did not. Who and what was behind the Traverse City success. . The program will be held in the Community Room of the Fife Lake Public Library, located on Lakeview.

Dave Pennington is a retired middle school principal and camp director who resides on Green Lake. His family settled in the area in the late 1870s. He is on the Board of the Traverse Area Historical Society where as an active volunteer, he has, among other things, scanned 10,000 old photographs

Friday, July 2, 7pm: Linda Forwerck will present a program: Families of Fife Lake. This will include not only families who lived in Fife Lake, but in outlying areas as well. The impact of these families upon the development of Fife Lake and the area will be explored as well as tracing some of the genealogical links to the present. A byproduct of this program is to enlarge the data base of the current Genealogical Library located in the Schoolhouse. Note that this program will be held at the Historic Schoolhouse in Fife Lake, State St. and Boyd.

Linda Forwerck is rooted in Fife Lake as her parents were born in Fife Lake and their grandfathers come to Fife Lake in the 1870s. Although retired, she currently is chairperson of the Fife Lake Downtown Development Authority and Vice-President of the Fife Lake Area Historical Society. She has served as the Kingsley Village Manager and Planning Assistant for Grand Traverse County Planning.

Friday, August 13, 2010: The Fife Lake Museum Curator, Fel Brunett, will present, Tales of the Ah-go-sah Trail. a program on the legendary Indian trail. This program will explore local prehistory for the period from the melt of the Port Huron glacier that formed the Manistee River to the arrival of the French in the 17^th Century. The program is sponsored jointly by the Fife Lake Area Historical Society and the Fife Lake Public Library and will be held in the Community Room of the Library on Lakeview.

Fel Brunett has BS and MSC degrees from the University of Michigan and is a Fellow of the Conference on Michigan Archaeology. His 1965 archaeological survey of the Manistee River basin from Sharon, MI to Sherman, MI was cited as exemplary in a major archaeological text.