What’s in Your Drawers?

After the cessation of activities in 1928 by the MWA at Camp 6190 Hall, the Hall became the Community Gathering Point protected from vandalism by love.

The Goat Story

In the 1800s, fraternal organizations were often viewed with suspicion. Their closed meetings, passwords, and initiation ceremonies led outsiders to imagine something dark and dangerous happening behind lodge doors.

The Taxman Never Lies

Oral history is fascinating and useful and very fun and doesn’t always match the written history. That doesn’t make oral history incorrect or invalid any more than it makes the written history incorrect or invalid; it makes all history nuanced.

Abandoned (Not) by All

One of the greatest dangers to folk art is vandalism — but neglect is what invites it. After Modern Woodmen activities ended and Camp 6190 was deactivated in 1929, the building now known as Wood Hall passed down the Gibeault family tree.

Who Wouldn’t Be a Woodman?

This early 20th-century postcard asks, “Who Wouldn’t Be a Woodman?” Images like this spoke to the heart, promising security, love, and protection for rural families.

Window Murals

After completing the dramatic Battle of Manila curtain—an advertisement for the Modern Woodmen of America itself—Hüpeden did turn to the more typical lodge commission: local business advertising but he put them on the window shades.

Restoration Underway

We got it going on!! Our three phase restoration project is underway under the careful direction of David Wells.

Ernest Hüpeden’s Murals

At the turn of the twentieth century, German immigrant artist Ernest Hüpeden quietly gave Valton’s MWA Camp 6190 Hall its lasting visual identity—though it wouldn’t be called the Painted Forest for another 60 years, when Delores Nash gave it the name we still use today.