Why Chaska? - Steve Mueller

Chaska Historical Society member Steve Mueller has devoted several months of nostalgic effort to bring answers to the question posed by the “Why Chaska?” exhibit at the History Center. Steve’s contribution focused on “Why Jonathan in Chaska?”, and he was uniquely qualified to distill over 50 years of history. Beginning in his architecture courses while in college, Steve was learning about Jonathan while bulldozers were still at work weaving Jonathan into the area’s hills, forests and valleys.

To bring details to light for the exhibit, Steve used all the resources available at the History Center – such as the collections of photographs, local newspapers and publications about Jonathan amassed over 5 decades. Additionally, because the Jonathan Association was aware of the historic significance of their development, they fortunately took action to preserve history. Read more...

Chaska Lions Club - A Valued Supporter

The Chaska Lions Club has been a generous supporter of the Chaska History Society – answering our need not only with providing funds to “keep the lights on,” so to speak, but also when an insurance premium was due and when we needed banner equipment. “We really couldn’t fulfill our mission of ‘stimulating community engagement in history by collecting, preserving, recording and sharing Chaska’s past and evolving history’ without the generous annual support of the Lions,” stated Lisa Oberski, society president. “I encourage all to support this great organization either by becoming an active member or by purposely seeking out ways to contribute to their causes.” Read more...

Volunteer Opportunities

Finding past articles to refresh historical knowledge and scanning donated photos along with documenting their provenance are just two of the volunteer projects we are currently working on. Our work is completed solely by volunteers like.....YOU! Consider volunteering at the Chaska Historical Society. Read more...

Volunteer Spotlight - Yvonne Welter

The never-ending job of selecting, organizing, categorizing and entering the artifacts of the Chaska History Center into a database is led by volunteer Yvonne Welter. Starting in 2012, at the invitation of her volunteer friend Sue Born, Yvonne has worked tirelessly and steadily to inspect and organize donated articles from the past decades. Yvonne is a member of the Accessions Committee that determines whether donations are a good fit for the collection, and she is a valued board member. She looks forward to using online technology that will allow widespread access to the Chaska History Center index of artifacts, providing even more value to the community of Chaska. Learn more about Yvonne.