Carnegie Museum to host quiz night fundraiser March 4

FAIRFIELD — For the second year in a row, the Carnegie Historical Museum in Fairfield will host a quiz night to raise funds for the museum.

The event will last from 7-9 p.m. on Saturday, March 4 at the Walton Club in Fairfield. Teams of four to six people will test their knowledge of Fairfield and Jefferson County trivia for the chance to take home the top prize. The attendance fee is $10 per person. To register for the event, call the museum’s assistant director Jake Schmidt at 641-472-6343.

Gloria Countryman, President of Carnegie Museum Foundation Board of Directors, said last year’s trivia night was held at the Fairfield Community Center, and the museum board and foundation board decided to switch it up for this year.

“We wanted to try a different location,” Countryman said. “We’ll have a variety of prizes for different things, and they came up with some good questions.”

Countryman said the museum has undergone many changes in the past few years, both to its exhibits inside and to its outside appearance, and even more upgrades are in store for the coming years. In just the last couple of years, the foundation has been able to fundraise, with assistance from the city, to install a new elevator, and replace the front entryway, sidewalk, stairs and railings outside.

One project underway that is nearing completion is the new sign on the northeast corner of the property advertising that the building houses both the Carnegie Historical Museum and the Fairfield campus of Indian Hills Community College. Countryman said the sign should be finished this spring, and that it contains stone from the Barhydt Chapel that once stood on the campus of Parsons College. The sign was created by Whitney Monument Works of Fairfield, with foundation work courtesy of Drish Construction, and stone work courtesy of Dennis Kossow. Bob Waugh of the American Legion in Douds will install a flagpole behind the sign.

The museum has contracted with Otto Baum Construction of Morton, Illinois, to repair the southwest corner of the museum, and to tuck point the bricks.

Countryman said that her foundation, along with the museum board and several other organizations in town such as the Fairfield Art Association and Fairfield High School, are in talks about how to best honor the memory of Mark Shafer, the museum’s former curator who died in December 2022.

“We don’t want to step on anybody else’s ideas,” Countryman said. “Mark’s wife Susan has made some suggestions, but we don’t have anything concrete yet.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com