Exhibits 2019

Learn about the exploits of the Army's 32nd Division, nicknamed the Red Arrow Division after piercing German defenses in France in World War I. 

The Red Arrow Division went on to fight under brutal conditions in World War II, doing battle with Japanese troops in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.

The world was wracked by a Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918, and no town in Berrien County was affected more than Three Oaks, which lost 27 of 800 residents to the disease (more than 3% of the population!). 

Before shopping malls and before the internet, Three Oaks had a thriving department store. Founded in 1910 as part of the Warren

Featherbone business empire that dominated Three Oaks, the store was later taken over by the Hunerjager family, which ran it for decades, even holding regular fashion shows featuring local folks as models.

Who was John W. Flynn and how did a Three Oaks-to-Sawyer road get named after this Chicago union boss and tough guy. And— was he really a pal of Al Capone's?  Our exhibit tries to separate fact from legend.

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The legend of the founding of New Buffalo begins with a shipwreck. But did the grounding of the Post Boy in November 1834 really lead Captain Wessel Whittaker to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Galien?​ And why did Whittaker's dreams of a great lake port city fizzle so quickly? He died penniless just a few years after coming to Michigan.

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(Artwork by Sonja Heath, New Buffalo HS Class of 2020)