Collections
History That Communicates & Inspires
The Goodhue County Historical Society collects and preserves exceptional items that communicate and inspire stories of the area known as Goodhue County, Minnesota. As of July 2020, the collection consists of a little over 67,000 items, including:
- almost 21,000 objects
- approximately 29,000 photographs
- over 14,500 archival items
- a research library of 2,500 reference items
GCHS’s collection contains more items than can ever be displayed or physically accessed at one time. Therefore, the Goodhue County Historical Society aims to make its collection widely available to the public.
In 2019, GCHS and several other history organizations joined a project organized by the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums (MALHM) to establish a new online collections database system. The transfer of GCHS’s collections data began in January 2020 and is still in progress. Although many images still need to be added, you can now access the majority of the Society’s collection on MNCollections.org. Follow the link or click the “Online Collection” tab under “Collections” to visit the site.
Additionally, a portion of our photography collection is digitized and available through Minnesota Reflections, an online database of digitized original materials shared by cultural heritage organizations. These photographs include images of agriculture, industry, sports, military, schools, parks, homes, river scenes, and early street scenes from the Reinhold J. Kosec collection.
For more information on GCHS’s archival collection and research materials, please visit our Library & Archives Holdings page.
Our collection items are held in the public trust. The board and staff strive to exceed professional museum ethics and industry standards for collections management and museum registration. You can view our current Collections Management Policy here to learn more about how GCHS cares for its collections.
