Knightstown History and Memories
BECOME A MEMBER OF HKI
HKI needs you as a Member. Your dues and contributions help keep the lights on, etc. But, more importantly, we also need your hands-on help and good ideas for our projects. Click below for membership information and membership Info.
HKI MUSEUM
22 N. WASHINGTON
- 0. BOX 74
KNIGHTSTOWN, IN 46149
During the Winter the museum is open from
10:00 AM to Noon on Fridays and Saturdays
or by special arrangement. No charge for admission.
Phone: 765-345-7585
KNIGHTSTOWN BOOK
The HKI Museum
HKI member Karen Trent has published a book with lots of facts and 127 pages of great historic pictures of Knightstown. To obtain a copy of Karen’s book send her an email at: kjtrent@gmail.comHistoric Knightstown Inc. (Home Page)
This is the Historic Knightstown Inc. web site.
There are some new items on this site.
A few old KHS Yearbooks have been uploaded and may be viewed with your “Adobe Reader” program. To access the Yearbooks go to the menu on the right of this page toward the bottom of the menu and click on the “KHS Yearbooks” link. Also two interesting documents have been uploaded. The Knightstown History written by Frank Edwards and a History of Pioneer Carthage written by Thomas Newby. Go to the menu toward the bottom and click on “Pioneer Memories”
Visit the HKI Facebook Page
There are lots of posts and comments of Historical interest on the HKI Facebook page. Please visit our page, become a member of the group, contribute items about old Knightstown and participate in the general discussions. Just click on this link: Historic Knightstown Facebook Page
The HKI Mission
Our mission is to actively preserve the history of this community. We urge searching our own backyards for items and stories that are so relevant to our humble beginnings. Our organization was initially started to preserve the identity of Century Old Homes. We were also actively involved in preserving the present Knightstown Academy and the Hoosier Gym, both Indiana Landmarks.
The Historic Knightstown Inc. Museum houses and displays items and memorabilia that reflect historical events of the past and the present.
Monthly meetings are conducted and several programs are
presented by authors, artists, guest speakers, historians, and preservationists.
The HKI Museum
This is the HKI Museum on the west side of the Public Square.
The Digital Archive Project
Historic Knightstown Inc. (HKI) is engaged in an on-going project to create a digital archive which will prolong, via digital technology, the life of historical documents, photographs, memorabilia and relics. Experts agree that there are few practical preservation methods for paper documents, such as deeds, maps, yearbooks, photos, etc. Time, light and the very materials on which historical documents are printed contribute to natural decay. In short, such items have a limited lifetime and essentially disintegrate over time.
However, by acting quickly and with the right tools, historians can produce digital duplicates of these important and valuable items for the education and enjoyment of current and future generations. This project aims to establish a secondary or “backup” version of HKI’s museum collection. This will also allow museum curators to produce at least a limited facsimile in the event of a catastrophe, such as fire, tornado, etc.
The goal of HKI’s digital archiving project is to digitally archive, via scanning and photography, the entire contents of the HKI museum. Ideally, all historical documents and photographs win be digitally scanned and stored on archive quality digital video discs or DVDs. Likewise, historical artifacts and other memorabilia will be digitally photographed for DVD storage. Archive quality CDs and DVDs have a lifetime guarantee and, if properly cared for, will maintain data perpetually.
Anyone with an interest in Knightstown and/or Henry County history will be served by this project. The nature of the digital records produced will ensure that important facets of Town history are not only modernized in terms of information storage and retrieval. but also more portable. With the advent of the Internet, it is also possible that this project will enable HKI staff members to share the Town’s history with students in China or Australia, for example. Therefore, the geographic area to be served by this project is potentially boundless. By nature, digital data gels nicely with the World Wide Web, making it possible to share the project’s results with countless individuals at home and abroad. Although it’s likely that more people will have access to the Town’s history once completed, it is difficult to determine the precise number of people who will be served by HKI’s digital archiving project Certainly, current historians will enjoy the comfort of knowing that such a vital collection is preserved, for all practical purposes. in perpetuity, using modern technology. It’s also safe to say that students and historians in the future will take advantage of these digital records by sheer virtue of their contemporary convenience and computerized accessibility. This is of particular importance given the aforementioned natural decay and catastrophe issues. The museum’s documents will only last so long. Digital documents will be available to people for a very long time.