Visitors encouraged to see new history exhibit in David City

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - There is a summer exhibit at the Butler County Museum that highlights the life and memorabilia collected by former Banner Press editor Jack Tarr.

We caught up with Jim Reisdorff with the Butler County Historical Society to learn more about the exhibit. “Our current exhibit at the Butler County Museum for the summer and fall is on collectibles accumulated by Jack and Betty Tarr,” Reisdorff said. “Jack was the long-time publisher of the Banner-Press newspaper here in town. He was known as quite the civic leader for the community. He and Betty were collectors of items from the David City community, because Jack realized that advertising was a crucial part of a newspaper. This is what we have on exhibit this summer.”

Tarr made a number of contributions to the community of David City. “Shortly after he became the actual editor and publisher of the paper, there was a move to get a new hospital in town,” Reisdorff said. “Of course, he used the power of the press to help promote the cause for passing a bond issue to get the new hospital built.”

There are some old newspapers hanging on the wall that highlight some of the other towns in the county from the early years. “The newspapers you see are in part issues of the Banner Press,” Reisdorff said. “They date back to 1971, the first year Jack Tarr was the publisher of the paper. To supplement that, we arranged to have older copies of newspapers from the county, that are no longer operating, added to the exhibit to illustrate other other examples of early journalism in the county.”

There will be a reading of old Ulysses newspapers by area farmer Greg Fiala on Monday, July 18 at the David City library from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It’s part of a program that the library and the Butler County Historical Society is offering to help people “hear” what the writing styles of old county newspapers might have been like.

If you’d like to see the exhibits at the museum, the Butler County Museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the old David City train depot.

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