Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts.

(Coleman Cox)

He that would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom. (German Proverb)

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it. (W.C. Fields)

A bar of iron, continually ground, becomes a needle. (Chinese Proverb)

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. (Mother Theresa)

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all. (J. Askenberg)

Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. (Josh Billings)

As we say in the sewer, if you're not prepared to go all the way, don't put your boots on in the first place. (Ed Norton)

They say you can't do it, but remember, that doesn't always work. (Casey Stengel)

Well, indeed we did perservere another year and have high hopes for 2007. So here we go!

The Union Mining Company Building: January of 2006 found us discussing our plans for the year with work on the Union Mining Company being our first priority. The first order of business on this building would be tackling the job of cleaning out all of the trash. Little did we dream at the time that so much more would be accomplished. Fasten your seat belts! It was a huge effort to be sure. Bob Rost (who donated the building to us) came and took away truck loads of things he had stored in the building. Then a team of us headed up by Dennis Lashley began the "gettin down and gettin dirty" work of clearing the building of all that was unusable including wall paneling, ceiling panels, old equipment such as calculators (must have been about 10 of those), metal file cabinets, car parts, etc, etc, etc. Some things we sold, some we gave away and much went by way of several pickups by J&D Trucking. We also managed to pull up several layers of flooring to find the original floor with a coating of sticky black tar paper residue. Another pickup load or two for the flooring hauled away. In the midst of all the ensuing dust and debris, Dennis ventured up into the attic and found a treasure trove of old papers and ledgers dating back to the late 1800's and a lot of these written in beautiful scripted handwriting. As we were leafing through them, a hundred years of dust rose up and settled on us. It didn't take long for us to look like coal miners at the end of their day, except in our case we were smiling-----broadly!

As the months went by Dennis enlisted the help of Chuck Hutzell and together they did some major renovation work on the interior walls of the back section of the building. This involved taking down ceiling and walls around the large vault exposing the white enameled brick encasing it and reinforcing the ceiling above. The reinforcement trusses took the form of a railroad bridge trestle with the C&P logo painted on it. Dennis even painted bolts on it to make it look more realistic. You have to see this! By July we were down to removing the sticky stuff from the floors with the advice and oversight of Darren Hott. Next came the staining and varnishing of the floors, again with Darren's supervision. This too was a group effort and we were very happy with the results. Much of the framing around the windows and doorways was missing and after searching long and hard we were finally able to find someone willing to do wood framing that would closely match the buildings original. The "crew" then worked on staining the wood and Dennis then applied the framing around the windows and doorways. Matching wainscotting was also applied to the walls in the original office or "fireplace room". Whew!!!!!!!!!

Alright, now that all of this is done what are we going to do with the building? Glad you asked. The building consists of three front rooms (one with a fireplace), a hallway and across the back of the building two large rooms open to one another with a large vault in the center. The "fireplace room" will be furnished as the office might have looked in the early 1900's. The two other front rooms will be set up as industry rooms with one being focused on the iron works and coal mining. The second one will focus on the brick works and clay mining. One side of the large open room across the back of the building with the C&P logo will be focused on the railroad industry here. Also planned for here is a table top relief map of the town and the industries based on a large map we found of the town in 1901. The map is quite detailed down to showing the names of the people who lived in the houses written on them. Thank you to Jill and Gunter Corrado for getting this framed for us. It now hangs from the "trestle" in the railroad room. The other half of the large open room will most liklely be set up as a research and sorting room and to display maps, books and papers relating to the industry history. We hope to also have rotating exhibits of historical interest.

THE IRON FURNACE: Wilbert Paul spent a good part of 2006 working on the tedious and trying as in "hurry up and wait" task of getting the iron furnace area deeded over to the society. Right now there are just a few more legal tweaks needed to complete the process. There will be a nice right of way to the area from New School Road near the post office back to the furnace. Thanks so much Wilbert for your tireless efforts!!!!!!!

The next stage will be the enormous task of raising funds for the restoration of the furnace. The HRDC (Human Resources Development Commission) out of Hagerstown will working with us on getting grant money. Think grants-----Big Grants!! This brings us to what we envision as a tremendous possibility for the town of Mt. Savage. Imagine if you will having our historic bank, jail, museum, Union Mining Company building and the iron furnace available for people to come and spend a few hours or even a day learning about our amazing history. What would it mean for our town if we were a destination for visitors and not just a place to pass through on the way to Frostburg or Cumberland?

WEB SITE: Our web site is doing very well with over 2600 visitors. Dennis has added many new features and is currently looking for town photos to scan for a Mt. Savage Photo Album. Be sure to visit our web site and if you already have, go back again.

There is always something new from the Web Guy. Go to http://www. mountsavagehistoricalsociety.org. Mt. Savage community organizations are welcome to post their events on our web calendar.

TOWN YARDSALE: We decided to hold the yardsale earlier in 2006 to accomodate early Spring cleaners but unfortunately April lived up to its

reputation and showered us out. Think this year we will go back to June or July when the odds are better.

SCHOOL VISIT: In late April, Becky Korns organized a visit to our historic sites for the Mt. Savage School fourth grade students. There were about 40 students, parents and teachers who walked down the hill from the school to the bank. Carol Dinning, Wilma Thompson and Jill Corrado manned the bank as 1900's tellers as Cora Carter, dressed as a miner, entertained those waiting outside to make a "deposit" with humerous stories about the town. Then it was off to the jail where Bill Wright as Magistrate gave a little history of why the jail was built(something about the town drunks I believe). After a tour of the Union Mining Company building and lunch at the park pavilion, the group proceeded to Old Row and the museum. Paula Wright, dressed as an Irish washer woman gave tours of the building while those waiting for the tour were entertained by Juanita Salazar portraying an Irish miner's school-aged daughter. Aye and what a brogue she had! Then it was off to the cabin in Old Row Park where Dennis Lashley took over as The Mountain Man with his stories of hunting and trapping. Think it is safe to say that we all had a good time and this will be an annual fourth grade field trip. For those of you who are familiar with the steep hillls of Mt. Savage, I'd like to point out that the teachers, parents and children all walked down and back up the hill to school! We are looking to expand in this area of bringing our history to the children in a more visual way by including other schools in the area. It will also help us to secure preservation grant money. Thank you so much Becky Korns for a wonderful idea and for organizing the whole thing! So now we are a historical society, a beautification committee and a theater troupe!

THE MUSEUM: We will be altering the museum a bit this year. The industries room collection and the railroad room collection will be moved down to the Union Mining Company building. In their place we will be creating a school room and a small country store. If you have any items that you think you would care to contribute to these two areas, we would greatly appreciate it. Additionally, the museum is getting up in years and as it is a wooden structure, the ravages of time are beginning to show. There's that "grant money" thing coming up again. We'll be working on that process with an eye toward replacing the roof, shoring up the rear foundation and staining and treating the wood structure itself. All of the windows(ten) will need recaulking and painting.

THE PLANT SALE: Since Cora Carter birthed this idea around eight years ago this has become our most popular event and best fund raiser for the society. The May 2006 plant sale brought in $1500 for us. Thanks to Shirley and Tom Kenney for being our "cashiers" for the past eight years. Speaking of plants, kudos to member Portia Blank who singlehandedly maintains and replaces as needed all of the flowers in the planters around town, as well as those on Old Row. Thank you too to Vince and Wilma Thompson for the lovely seasonal displays around the town clock.

THE BRICKS: The final order of bricks finally arrived in December after a five month wait. These will be added to the ones already in place in front of the Union Mining Company in the Spring. Dennis Lashley designed a raised bench effect to protect the bricks from traffic and weather and skateboards. Just another reason to visit.  (If you would like to purchace a brick contact any member . $40 for 2 lines and $42 for 3 lines)

IRON RAIL DAYS: October's Iron Rail Days was Iron Rail Day in 2006 and this year will return in September for two days. October has been an unpredictable weather month for us and we're hoping that the change to an earlier month will help Mother Nature be kinder to us. Somewhere in between all of the other things going on Cora Carter organized planning meetings for this event and with a lot of hard work and ingenuity we were really pleased with the outcome. New this year were our Jennings Run Duck Races which were not only fun to watch but brought a lot of participation. We thank Jhorden Lashley (our youngest member and best sport) for dressing up as a duck to promote the event. That took a lot of guts folks. Think this event is a keeper. In addition to the Duck Race, we had the Frankfort Teal Steel Band and the Wills Mountain Cloggers. Joe Brummage and his railroad club and the WMCNRRHS returned to the Union Mining Company building and with another train display by

Jim Vanmeter from J&D trucking. While negotiating with Jim about hauling away our junk we discovered a mutual interest---trains!

Across the way from the building on Jim Lashley's property (yep, Dennis's brother) Earl Pope set up a display of antique tractors and Dale Simpson of Cranemasters had a walk-through van display of current tools and supplies needed to maintain a modern railroad. Our usual base of activities were there including the VVA, crafters, the silent auction, the tour sites, food, games and the Classie Chassis. Eileen Nolan filled in for John as musical MC and did a great job. Don and Marianna Keene were kind enough to have the Evergreens open for visitors this year and we thank them for that.

CHRISTMAS IN OUR VILLAGE: This was our final event for 2006 and what a nice way to get ready for Christmas.  Becky Korns did an amazing job of decorating the Union Mining Company building with Santa's workshop and Santa (Gunter Corrado), with Portia Blank and Carol Dinning as elves. Joe Brummage was there with his trains as well as Jim Vanmeter's trains. The children attending got their photo taken with Santa, a present, some cookies and cocoa and hopefully a very nice memory. Juanita Salazar had a group of her students put on a Christmas play at the Masonic Home and Andy Blank opened his home to show his wonderful collection of antique items. The Methodist Church had their own Christmas presentation this year with a puppet show, gingerbread room and carolers. The museum was open with a Christmas Past display to remind us of simpler times in days of yore. Cora Carter was hostess at the bank which was open for refreshments for all who came out to begin celebrating the season. Thanks to Jim Dickel for hanging the lantern lights once again throughout the town. Not an easy job for sure but certainly makes the town look festive throughout the season. Thanks Jim!

All in all it was a pretty amazing year! Thanks to everyone for all of your hard work, financial support, good thoughts and for all that you do to make a difference in our town.