Hillsdale County Historical Society

Hillsdale County Historical Society A non-profit organization working to restore, maintain, and share the history of Hillsdale County Welcome.

On our website (hillsdalehistoricalsociety.org) has over 90 articles about the people, places and things in the past of Hillsdale County. If you have a question or something you would like to donate to the Society, please use our gmail address to contact us: [email protected]

A week away! We hope you can bring your show cars up to the Poorhouse to display on Saturday, June 6. Our food vendor th...
05/28/2026

A week away! We hope you can bring your show cars up to the Poorhouse to display on Saturday, June 6. Our food vendor this year is Natalie's Love at 1st Bite and we are so happy to have them. They have great breakfast and lunch items. Be sure to visit our newest museum space in our old barn. We just recently had it repainted and new displays put up and it's looking beautiful. The house, fire truck barn and general store will all be open too. As always, delicious baked goods will be for sale in the General Store. This is a free event for spectators - we hope to see you there.

05/26/2026

**Help needed!** We continue to need new volunteers to bring in baked goods for bake sale events. Would you or someone you know like to help us? We still need baked goods (cookies, muffins, brownies, pies, etc) for our June 6th car show, and looking ahead to August farmfest. Please message us here, or call/text Rebekah at 517-425-4603. We are so grateful for your help in making our events/fundraisers a success!

Just a little over three weeks away. We hope you will join us for our 5th annual car show at the Poorhouse in Hillsdale...
05/13/2026

Just a little over three weeks away. We hope you will join us for our 5th annual car show at the Poorhouse in Hillsdale. Museums will be open including our newest museum area located in our old barn. See the displays and the Mail Pouch sign. Baked goods will be available in the General Store and the house will be open except for the kitchen area as we are still waiting for repairs to be done in that area. The old barn will have a beautiful new coat of paint and hopefully some clean up in the back of the barn will be done by then too. "Natalie's Love at 1st Bite" will be our food vendor. They have delicious breakfast and lunch items.

Save the date for our 5th annual car show.
03/04/2026

Save the date for our 5th annual car show.

02/14/2026

We also want to thank Vested Risk/Auto Owners Insurance, Independence Heating and Cooling, Cat Rec from Homer, Hillsdale County Community Foundation and BPU for their quick response in working with us.

02/14/2026

When it freezes things break!

We discovered on Monday that we had a water line break in our kitchen spilling 279,000 gallons of water into the Poorhouse. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of the water went into the crawlspace under the kitchen, as well as the basement for approximately two weeks. It could have been MUCH worse. We will be dealing with remediation for quite some time followed by a great deal of repair that will hopefully be covered by insurance. The foundation under the kitchen has been severely damaged by the water trying to drain out and the kitchen floor and possibly one wall has damage. We also now have a sink hole in the yard where much of the water drained underground. We will be working through everything in the next few weeks and will keep everyone updated.

On another note- we are looking for a volunteer who would be willing to install tin can lids over the holes in the siding of our big barn. We have what we need to cover- just need help installing them.

It's time again for our annual update on the Hillsdale Historical Society. While we accomplished a few things, we unfor...
01/06/2026

It's time again for our annual update on the Hillsdale Historical Society. While we accomplished a few things, we unfortunately ran out of money and/or time to get everything done that was on our list. We did get the Mail Pouch sign installed on the inside of our old barn where is will be a permanent feature. We got all new lighting and electricity installed in our old barn and we renovated our bathroom in the Poorhouse. The house is now pretty much finished with repairs and updates. We shouldn't have to do much of anything in there for a few years - hopefully. The items we still have on our list for this year includes: cover holes in the siding of the old barn where knots have fallen out or siding has cracked. We plan on using old can lids just like farmers did in the olden days to fix that problem. If you can save your can lids and drop them off at the Poorhouse in a box on the porch of our other barn - we would greatly appreciate it. We also need to get the new museum area put together. We would appreciate help lifting and moving items if you are available. We would like to have that up and running by this summer. The lower level of the old barn needs a lot of work. We have a nice concrete floor area in the north end but it is covered in dirt that will need to be cleaned out. Once that is done we would be able to relocate some of the farm machinery pieces down there. We also didn't quite finish the outside clean-up of the old barn. We still have one tree to take down, remove a very poor-condition outhouse and partial cement wall so we can remove stumps and add a nice grade to the yard for easier mowing. The old barn will also need to be repainted - or at the very least the back needs painted. We also realized right before our Christmas Open House that the furnace we use to heat the General Store was not working - so we need to have that repaired or replaced and we also need to replace the crumbling step into the General Store. We are hoping that once we get the old barn completely finished up that we may be able to rent that as a small venue location. We are also offering the grounds as a photo location for family photos/engagement photos, etc. for a small donation. With loosing our largest fundraiser of selling caramel corn and peanuts at the fair, money is always an issue. We were fortunate to receive some nice donations last year and try to be very smart with using those. We still depend on your generosity - both financial and in person volunteerism to keep our organization running. To all who have helped - thank you so much.

12/07/2025

Magical Moments with Santa Clause here in the General Store at the Will Carleton Poorhouse , 180 N. Wolcott Street. We are here with Santa Clause until 4pm. Stop and see us!

Don’t let the snow scare you away from the Poorhouse today. Hours are 1-4. See the decorations and enjoy some snacks in ...
12/07/2025

Don’t let the snow scare you away from the Poorhouse today. Hours are 1-4. See the decorations and enjoy some snacks in the house, visit the general store and see Santa from 2-4 and get some baked goods then stop into the barn museum to see our displays.

12/06/2025

What a great turnout we had today. Thank you for visiting us. We will be open again tomorrow from 1-4 with another awesome Santa in the general store from 2-4. If you weren’t able to attend today, hopefully you can make it on Sunday.

Address

N Wolcott Street
Hillsdale, MI
49242

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