Wisconsin's attic is moving — Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Veterans Museum move collections

MADISON - Everything must go.

Uniforms, Civil War letters and diaries, dozens of footlockers, Medals of Honor, cannons, photos, drums and Spanish-American War cavalry saddles.

They're all getting packed up and moved in a huge undertaking that will last much of this year and next as the archives of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and the Wisconsin Historical Society are shifted to a new facility.

The museum featuring displays on Wisconsin's warriors and military history will remain open next to the state Capitol. The archives in the cramped basement — which are not seen by the public — are being moved.

At the Wisconsin Historical Society, storage facilities holding governors' papers, Warner Bros. films and the uniform worn in every game of the 1965 Green Bay Packers season by recent Hall of Famer Jerry Kramer will be emptied and moved.

The recently opened State Archive Preservation Facility on S. Thornton Ave. in Madison is slowly filling with what's basically Wisconsin's attic. The 188,000-square-foot facility cost $46.7 million and features state-of-the-art storage areas and several environmental zones of varying temperatures and humidity.

"We're happy the state decided to build it. It shows a great commitment to the cultural patrimony of the state of Wisconsin," said Michael Telzrow, director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.

About 22,000 of the 26,000 items in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and archives are being moved. The Wisconsin Historical Society's suitcase is a bit bigger — more than 105,000 three-dimensional objects and 200,000 books and papers will transfer to the new facility.

The Wisconsin Historical Society outgrew its building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus decades ago and has rented three off-site storage facilities since 1991. Archivists began moving collections a month ago, starting with 11,000 volumes of state newspapers.

"This is a once-in-a-career opportunity," said Matt Blessing, administrator of the Library Division-Archives at the historical society.

"We've been collecting at the national level in our North American history collection since our founding in 1846. It had reached a point even 20 years ago where the collections were taking over public spaces," Blessing said.

The society has been preparing for the move for several years. Roughly 40% of its archives, 20% of its library collection and 99% of its museum artifacts are moving. The transfer began last month and is expected to finish by the summer of 2019.

Among the historical society artifacts already moved: one bank safe, two pianos, four riding lawn mowers, an iron lung used by polio patients, a cross section of an enormous white pine tree, a fiberglass Marc's Big Boy statue, a studio recording system used by Wisconsin native Butch Vig and comedian Chris Farley's Madison Edgewood High School football jersey.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum has also prepared for years for the transfer and began shifting stuff earlier this month. Veterans museum officials are moving a couple of truckloads each Monday, when the museum is closed, and plan to finish by this fall.

Items range from medals, buttons, insignia and signet rings to 18th- and 19th-century cannons and caissons and more than 100 military flags. Plus thousands of photos, letters, periodicals and other paper documents.

Among the artifacts is a newly acquired item — the museum's first Civil War Iron Brigade frock coat. This week Kevin Hampton, curator of history, carefully packed the blue coat worn by Charles F. Chipman, a replacement in Company F of the famed 7th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, who enlisted from Cassville in February 1864.

Chipman missed the horrific battles of Antietam and Gettysburg but fought in the Battle of the Wilderness, where he was wounded in the arm and spent almost a year recovering in a hospital. The frock coat, which is in very good condition, stayed in the Chipman family until a granddaughter sold it several decades ago. The museum acquired it from a collector.

Wearing white gloves, Hampton pointed to the collar, which had been cut down to allow Chipman to more freely move his chin.

"The neat thing is he tried to stitch the piping. I'm guessing he did it himself, which is neat because it shows his personality," said Hampton, noting that Chipman's military pay would have been docked several dollars to pay for his uniform.

Chipman's Iron Brigade frock coat, which will likely go on display at some point at the veterans museum, "really reflects on what we're trying to tell here — that every veteran is a story."

Though the new building is not open to the public, researchers can make appointments to examine documents and items at the new State Archive Preservation Facility. Or they can go online to order research materials like books and periodicals, which will then be sent by courier to the Wisconsin Historical Society where they can be examined.

Several rooms at the preservation facility resemble chemistry labs with vacuums called snorkels hanging from the ceiling and tanks of deionized water for paper conservation. One suite of rooms is for pest management to remove insects that burrow into textiles, paper or wood and prevent contamination of other collections. As items are moved from one room to another, the temperature gradually gets colder, said Wisconsin Veterans Museum Assistant Director Jennifer Van Haaften.

"We don't want to shock any of the objects because cracks can occur," Van Haaften said.

There's a photo studio, conservation lab, various sized shelves and racks for flags, tents, hammocks, saddles and military footlockers and cold storage areas for film kept at 40 degrees.

Officials project the new facility won't get filled for at least 25 years.