The historic holdout?
Williams one of the last Route 66 towns to have a historical society
Just as it was the last town to be bypassed by Interstate 40, Williams also holds the honor of being the last town without a historic society in which to preserve its heritage, said Ash Fork resident George Garcia. Garcia, along with Yvette Hudson of Williams, have been working to change that, however, by starting up a historic society in Williams. The group's aim is to preserve the rich history of Williams for future generations. The group currently has four members, along with various individuals who stop in occasionally.
"We started the Williams Historical Society July 19. There has never been a historical society here, so we wanted to organize one. Williams is the only town along Route 66 that does not have a historical society, except for the little blurbs. Kingman has an awesome museum. Ash Fork has a museum. Seligman has a cottage house, little museum. Holbrook has an awesome museum. Williams, we don't have anything. We're such a historic town, it's weird that we don't," said Garcia, who serves as director for the Williams group. He said turnout for the meetings have been slim.
"There have been a few people showing up. We've had ice cream socials to try to get people to show up and then we organized a kind of interim board of directors and we've adopted by-laws for the historical society," Garcia said.
The group meets on the third Tuesday of each month at the Grand Canyon Hotel at 6:30 p.m. The hotel is located at the intersection of Route 66 and Second Street in downtown Williams. Meetings typically last about an hour. Local artifacts and photos are invited for those who wish to attend the meetings as well, though not necessary, Garcia added.
"Right now that (time) works for us. If there's more people involved, we could change it," Garcia said. "We have been meeting pretty much every month except for December. Sometimes we just have four people showing up, so we really can't do any business. Sometimes we have a hard time getting our quorum. We need some of the old timers, even the next generation of the families, to get involved. I'd like to see some representation from the schools, the students, and then also somebody from the Forest Service and different organizations. What we'd like is to have a full-time board of directors, some interested members that come to the meetings. Ash Fork has 150 members, they're scattered all over the country. Ultimately we'd like to have a museum, where we can store the local artifacts and have photographs, maybe put out a few publications."
Garcia is a training officer for the Arizona Department of Transportation when not involved with his work with the historical society. Members of his family are fourth-generation "railroaders" and it was railroad history that originally got him interested in the past. Garcia helped form the Ash Fork Historical Society as well.
"I'm one of the founding members of that organization," said Garcia. "I was asked to try to help get one going here in Williams. My family has been here since the early 30's."
Yvette Hudson, treasurer and secretary for the Williams Historical Society said their group differs from the Williams Historical Preservation Commission in a number of different ways.
"Basically the Historical Preservation Commission is set up by the city to preserve the historic buildings, but there hasn't been any organization set up to preserve the artifacts and the history of the people especially for Williams. Usually at our meetings, especially when we first started out, we had an awful lot of people that brought in photos and things like that," said Hudson. "That was very interesting because we have several people who are lifetime residents here and they're in their 70's and 80's. They know an awful lot about the history of the town, more recent history of the town and everything. That's basically what we need. We need more of the older residents to come and we need the newer residents who just moved in to also attend, because they need to find out about the town that they live in."
Hudson, a retired public historian, moved to the area a little over a year ago. She has a master's degree in public history. Hudson said she has also worked for historical societies and museums in three different states.
"I've had (an) interest in history for a long time," Hudson said, adding that many of the photos the group receives arrive via the Williams-Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce. "They all come through the chamber of commerce with the idea that they wanted someone to preserve and take care of the information and stuff like that. Another thing is that there are a lot of private citizens that have their own collections of photos. I know that a lot of people are afraid that something is going to happen to them, but with modern technology all we have to do is scan them. We are keeping the scan version and they can keep the originals. If we can get enough members and have a substantial membership, the History Channel has a program of grants that they will award to non-profit historical societies. What they want to do is they want to tie the schools into the history. What it would be (is) the school's coming up with projects. The grants can be up to almost $10,000. That's what we need. We need to have an organization where we can do things like that and let the kids know what the history is here too," said Hudson.
The group will meet on April 17 at 6:30 p.m. at the Grand Canyon Hotel. For more information on the Williams Historical Society, contact George Garcia at P.O. Box 397, Ash Fork AZ 86320 or by calling (928) 607-3781. Yvette Hudson can be contact at 1446 East Sagebrush, Williams AZ 86046 or by calling (928) 635-4467.
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