By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Each Thursday history is reflected upon as relics from Tiro’s past are on full display at the Tiro Historical Museum.
After renting out her childhood home stopped being fun, Jeanette Brown decided to transfer the home on Main Street into a place remembering the history of Tiro. Work began on the project in 2014 but it was at the turn of the year when Brown started the real work of placing the artifacts on display.
Brown explained what inspired the opening the village’s history museum.
“Just looking at Tiro, and knowing that we are slowing down around here, and Tiro’s history was going to be lost if we didn’t do something,” Brown said.
The museum features artwork from businesses and citizens that once called Tiro home. Pictures of ball teams, bands, and buildings are also on display. Disasters that occurred in Tiro are also on display, from fires that the Tiro Fire Department battled to the train derailment that occurred on the old Pennsylvania Railroad.
Also on display are records from Tiro dating back to the civil war.
A Vietnam War-era uniform that her husband wore adorns a hallway wall as one goes into the Tiro High School Alumni Room which began its display in June and will run until September. The Alumni Room features photos of former senior classes dating from the 1920s through the 1950s with class slogans and class flower.
Brown noted that she still isn’t finished with finding pictures as the museum currently doesn’t have pictures of a few of the classes.
Brown explained that she has found out a lot about the history of Tiro through the village’s old newspaper, The Tiro World, which ceased printing in the 1960s.
Brown noted that while a few of the items on display come from her own collection, a few of the items have been donated as well.
While Brown has done a majority of the work for the historical museum she hopes that it lives on.
“My dream is to have this as an establishment in Tiro after I pass,” Brown said.
Brown is currently in the process of putting three different books together of Tiro’s history. One has different advertisements of businesses that were open at one point in the village and another features miscellaneous history on the town including the DeKalb College. The final book is a history of the town from a person’s collection which features pictures and news clippings of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the village of Tiro, and the Tiro Volunteer Fire Department.
Brown says she averages a few visitors each day that the museum is open with calls of interest on the museum from as far as Arizona.
The Tiro Historical Museum is open from 1 to 4:30 p.m. every Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first and third Saturday of each month.