The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Museum provides look at area history
Tucked in the back of a Mentor strip shopping center is a museum dedicated to Lake County’s Native American history.
Suite A112 at 7519 Mentor Ave. is the Indian Museum of Lake County’s third home. The 37-year-old museum spent its first quarter century at Lake Erie College before moving to Willoughby-Eastlake Tech Center on River and Center streets in Willoughby. It’s been at its Mentor location for more than a year.
“It’s been good for us,” Director Ann Dewald said.
Dewald admits the museum has never been in an easy to find location, but they’re only a phone call away if anyone has trouble.
The museum was established in 1980 by Lake County Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio. It’s objective is to “discover, collect and preserve archaeological sites and material related to the history and antiquities of Native Americans of Lake County, the State of Ohio and the North American Continent; to maintain and museum and library; to extend knowledge through the above means and by educational meetings, publications and other proper means.”
It was established a few years after the Reeve Village property was sold to the Marine Park Condominiums. Prior to that, several museums and institutions did test digs and studies on the property just west of what is now Eastlake Middle School, but the whole site was not excavated according to the museum. As trenches for gas and water were dug in 1973, hundreds of artifacts were unearthed.
“Amateur archeologists worked into the nights to save as many artifacts as possible during this salvage archaeology,” according to the museum.
The site was home to the Whittlesey Culture (900 A.D. to 1600 A.D., an indigenous group found along the southern shores of Lake Erie in Northeast Ohio. They were extensive farmers, as well as hunters, fishermen and gatherers. Their villages were on bluffs overlooking rivers or lakes.
“We have no idea who they were,” Dewald said. “They were killed off before any Europeans got into this area. Probably by Seneca.”
Dewald, a former Willoughby-Eastlake Elementary School teacher had an early interest in Native American History.
That interest has stayed with her. She met the museum’s first director and began volunteering, answering phone among other duties. Even now as director, it’s in a volunteer capacity.
The museum is funded through memberships and donations and does not receive government funding.
At the museum, Dewald is able to share history with everyone from 3-year-olds to nursing homes residents and “everyone in between.”
They also hold special events, like the annual artifact identification workshop. The event gave participants a chance to learn about prehistoric tools, animal bones and spear points that could be up to 8,000 years old and found in the area.
“History is an important thing,” Dewald said. “As a former teacher, I think we should be teaching more history.”