Carlton County Historical Society - where the coffee is fresh and the history is hot!
This year the Carlton County Historical Society celebrates its 66th birthday! The Cloquet Rotary Club organized a county historical society in 1949, but it faltered for many years getting started. By the early 1960s the organization revived and opened its first museum in Carlton in part of the County Sheriff's Office. From there it moved to the County Courthouse, then to the Haubner building in Carlton. After that the museum moved to the old Garfield Elementary School in Cloquet, then to its present location in the former public library building in Cloquet. The historic Shaw Memorial Library building, built in 1919 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, makes a perfect setting for the historical society's exhibits, museum shop, research library and archives. The basement level serves as storage for the museum's collections and meeting space. We hope the Carlton County Historical Society won't falter again and can continue to occupy a building of its own. Through a county grant, memberships, museum store sales, admission and research fees, as well as donations from friends and businesses, we are able to carry out our mission to collect, preserve, and disseminate the history of Carlton County.