LA CROSSE — The Rush County Historical Society and Kansas Barbed Wire Museum will be hosting its annual Old-Fashioned Christmas on Friday, Nov. 24, from 6:00-9:00 pm in La Crosse. Visitors can browse the five unique museums: the Historical Museum in the 19th Century Timken Depot; the Post Rock Museum, one of the seven wonders of Kansas Customs; the Nekoma Bank Museum, a restored 1916 rural bank; the Pleasant Point School Museum; and Kansas Barbed Wire Museum.

There will be live musical performances in each of the buildings including piano, organ, guitar, and vocals. Visitors can enjoy hot cider, homemade cookies and popcorn, or roast marshmallows over an open fire. There will be a make-it and take-it crafts section where kids can make their own old-fashioned toy to take home.

Making his debut at the Old-Fashioned Christmas this year will be a Civil War era Army Post Surgeon re-enactor sponsored by Sternberg Museum. He will talk about some of the unique sideline activities that many Post Surgeons were involved in such as the fossil collecting of George M. Sternberg, Surgeon General of the Army, who was responsible for bringing his brother and nephew Charles and George F Sternberg to western Kansas.

A feature attraction this year is the century-old Pleasant Point One-Room School Museum moved to the museum campus from south of the small town of Nekoma. Restoration of the school is almost completed. When the Society acquired the school, almost all of the original furnishings, books, and supplies remained so the school is a virtual time capsule of early 20th century rural education. A new addition to the school is a rare 1901 Burdett piano-cased organ – a pump organ in an upright piano cabinet.

Events begin at 6:00 pm, Friday at the museum campus on the south edge of La Crosse on West First Street. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit us on Facebook, on the web at www.rushcounty.org/rchs or call 785-222-2808.