Documenting the history of the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Arts & Convention Center is home to scores of musical and theatrical performances every year, and is the heart and soul of live entertainment in Fairfield.

The arts center opened its doors in 2007. In the ensuing 16 years, Martha Flinspach and Doris Eklund have been responsible for cataloging the center’s history through newspaper clippings and other print materials. Flinspach just stepped down as the center’s official historian, and will hand the baton off to Cathy Kaska.

Those who wish to go down memory lane can visit a table in the Parsons College wing of the arts center’s lobby on the south side. There, they will find 13 bound volumes documenting every year of the arts center’s history.

The first volume starts in 1998, almost a decade before the arts center opened when the facility was just a lofty idea. The first volume takes readers on a journey showing how the arts center came to be, from the planning stages through construction, and from its original name of Jefferson County Civic Center to the name we know it as today.

Flinspach had recently retired from teaching when she saw an ad in the newspaper from then-arts center director Rustin Lippincott looking for someone to be the arts center’s historian. He wanted someone to make a scrapbook from newspaper clippings. Flinspach told him that would be too much work.

“We would have 50 or 60 scrapbooks by now,” Flinspach said.

Instead, Flinspach suggested cataloging all stories that appeared about the FACC and organizing them by date, and that’s what was done.

“I did it because no one else would do it, and I felt it was a good idea to have this collection,” Flinspach said.

Residents can peruse the 13 bound volumes of the arts center’s history during its business hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.