Bruce Aiton, an Itasca County Historical Society board member turned 80 years old in 2018! He came to the board of directors and said, “the museum doesn’t have a veterans exhibit.” The board agreed with him and asked him to put a proposal together for a new exhibit!

The Itasca County Historical Society then embarked on what has become the Itasca Veterans Project with the goal of recording digital personal history of every Itasca County veteran. We are asking each veteran, spouse, or family of veteran to help us by completing a questionnaire with up to 3 pictures which will be entered in a database – all by volunteers.

This is an awesome undertaking as we have some 4500 living vets and just as many deceased in the county. The project will take many volunteer hours and some funding for software changes to the ICHS website and for the design of a permanent veteran display in the museum. Important to our success is funding and the input of veterans into the design of the display.

Volunteers are working quite diligently entering the information; pictures are being scanned; the exhibit is being built and now it’s up to everyone to gather their information and pictures.

This exhibit is an ongoing project and volunteers will document our veterans for many years to come. Future generations will know the sacrifice that many of our own local people made for our country.