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The museum recently announced that it had accepted a gift of one of Three Oak's most unusual historic structures-- the Warren Oil & Gas Building at 7 South Elm Street. Built in 1932, this building has its roots in the massive ranch holdings of the Warren family of Three Oaks.
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The Warren fortune was built on the manufacture of Featherbone at its factories in Three Oaks, but the family also invested heavily in cattle ranches in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Mexico.
These investments were largely driven by the fascination that Charles Warren had for the Old West. Charlie was a cowboy wannabe.
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During the Depression, the Warrens began selling off their ranches, but they retained the mineral rights. The Oil & Gas building was built to take in and process royalty checks from oil companies
Museum to receive donation of the
Warren Oil & Gas Building
The company was largely run by William Kramer and Ray Hoffman. Hoffman, shown at left in the1970s in front of the Oil & Gas Company safe, was married to Charles Warren's
daughter, Josephine.
Kramer, pictured at right, had helped manage the Warren ranches as a young man. He and Hoffman ran the Oil & Gas business right up until their deaths in the 1980s.
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The building is being donated to TROTOM by James Barkhurst, heir to the estate of Raymond Hoffman Jr., who had inherited the building from his parents. Barkhurst's donation specifies that the building house a museum dedicated to the Warrens and the Featherbone Company, and that the exhibit be dedicated to the memory of (Sarah) Josephine Warren Hoffman (pictured at right).
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Since the building has been vacant for several decades, putting together these exhibits will take considerable time and resources. The museum plans a capital campaign to raise funds to update the building and install displays.
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It is expected that the building title will be formally transferred to the museum at a ceremony planned for mid-June.​​​
On the evening of May 1st, a great crowd of our members and volunteers gathered at the museum to get a "sneak peek" at what's new for 2025...and enjoy snack and drinks.
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The next day at noon, the museum opened its doors for this year. We'll welcome visitors from now through the end of October-- 12-5 PM, Friday through Sunday. There's no admission charge, though a donation of $3 is appreciated. We look forward to seeing you!
The museum's 2025 season is underway!
PrancerPalooza provides holiday cheer
and a nostalgic return of movie cast and crew
35 years after the Three Oaks area provided the charming setting for the filming of Prancer, some of the film's stars came back to town on December 14 for a celebration dubbed PrancerPalooza. Rebecca Harrell, who played Jessica Riggs, the little girl at the heart of the movie, attended, as did Rutanya Alda (Aunt Sarah) and Belinda Bremner (Miss Bedelia).
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The film's director, John Hancock (still an area resident) and film editor Dennis O'Connor and other crew members were also on hand. A. J. Workman, who helped control the robotic reindeer used in the movie, came all the way from
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Oklahoma, bringing with him some fantastic print illustrations of movie scenes and of Prancer done by his fellow reindeer operator John Brunner during delays that are a part of every filmmaking experience. He gave the first print of the illustration at right to Prancer's producer, Raffaella De Laurentis.
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Sam Elliott (John Riggs) had planned to attend but is no longer able to come, due to an unexpected professional commitment. Mark Rolston (Herb Drier) also planned to attend, but had to drop out after a hiking injury that required surgery.
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Cast members who have passed away-- Cloris Leachman, Abe Vigoda, and Michael Constantine among them-- were remembered throughout the weekend.
The film itself was shown three times at the Vickers Theatre, each screening followed by a Q-and-A session, with performers and crew members recalling their movie-making experiences in Michiana in 1989.
At 4 PM, cast & crew were hailed in a PrancerPalooza parade that wound down Elm Street Between Maple and Linden. They rode in sleighs decked out in Christmas finery, accompanied by "rein-dogs" (pooches wearing antlers) and even a pony and a couple of llamas!
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The parade ended just outside Three Oaks Heritage Hall, where the museum displayed the scale model of Three Oaks village used in the film's final scene, along with a slide show showing more that 100 images of the cast and crew at work on the streets of Three Oaks and other Michiana sites.
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PrancerPalooza was a joint effort of the museum, Three Oaks Village, and the village's Downtown Development Authority. The festivities shifted to LaPorte the next day, where cast and crew answered questions at a screening at the city's Civic Center.​​
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TROTOM VP presents the story of "The Sandburgs and the Nisei"
at statewide history conference.
History buffs from across the state of Michigan heard a remarkable tale of wartime Harbert at the annual conference of the Historical Society of Michigan in late September.
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TROTOM Vice President Nick Bogert presented a 45-minute program on how famed poet Carl Sandburg and his wife Paula took in two young Japanese-Americans who had been detained by the government under rules later declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. Sunao Imoto and Kaye Miyamoto left detention centers where their families were being held and lived with the Sandburgs in the early 1940s, helping Carl Sandburg as he wrote his massive biography of Abraham Lincoln and also tending Paula Sandburg's prize-winning goat herd.
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Bogert had presented a similar program on this little-known chapter of Harbert history in June at the Chikaming Township Hall as part of TROTOM's summer lecture series.
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Remembering Harold Russell
TROTOM lost an avid supporter and guiding force this summer with the passing of Harold Russell. Harold was a seminal player in the effort to revive a history museum in Three Oaks, motivated in ​part by fond boyhood memories of visiting the Chamberlain Museum, which closed down in the1950s.
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Harold's love of local history and his skills as a lawyer were quite valuable to the effort to bring a museum back to the Three Oaks area in the early 2000s, and he served as a TROTOM board member for almost two decades. Our condolences go out to his wife Margo and Harold's family.
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