Hancock County Historical Museum
The Hancock Historical Museum is a privately-funded, non-profit history museum founded in 1970 by five Findlay residents to collect and preserve the rich history of Hancock County. The Museum is located in the Hull-Flater House at 422 West Sandusky Street, and first opened to the public in 1971. An addition was built on to the Hull-Flater House in 1985, serving as an exhibit center and meeting area while also housing the archives and museum collections. At the same time, a barn was constructed behind the museum, currently displaying exhibitions about transportation and agricultural life in Hancock County. The Crawford Log House, originally built in Biglick Township, was then moved behind the barn completing the museum structures housed on Sandusky Street.
The Hancock Historical Museum also maintains two sites on County Road 236 – the Little Red Schoolhouse, furnished as a 19th century one-room schoolhouse, and the Riverside Train, a miniature train that once operated at Riverside Park.
The museum carries out a variety of programs in these facilities. For school-aged children, the museum hosts a Fifth Grade Hands-on History program, a Fourth Grade Government Program, and Girl Scout badge-earning workshops. For adults, there are monthly Brown Bag Lunch Lecture Series presentations, a Senior Symposium for senior residential care centers, and various workshops. All ages can enjoy the exhibit center, with constantly updated displays and exciting insight into the rich history of Hancock County.
The Hancock Historical Museum sponsors a volunteer Living History Troupe, presenting programs portraying real people and events in local history, and the 57th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a re-enactment group that participates in various Civil War activities.
The museum houses permanent exhibits relating to the Gas and Oil Boom of the 1880s, Findlay Glass, the Civil War and World War II. In addition, there are rotating exhibits pertaining to Findlay businesses, social life in Hancock County, and other topics of local and regional interest.
