Membership

Please consider joining or renewing your membership this year!

How do I join or renew my membership?

To become a member or renew your membership:

• Choose your membership option and click on the button below to complete payment on our website.

• OR Mail membership dues to Polk County Historical Society, PO Box 41, Balsam Lake, WI 54810

Why is MUSEUM membership important?

• The Polk County Museum is a non-profit organization which relies on gifts, grants, donations and annual memberships for its financial stability.

• Membership dues at the Museum are unrestricted, which means they support our annual operating costs and are not restricted to a specific program or fund. This is important to distinguish, because much of the Museum’s other funding, such as grants and major gifts, frequently is restricted to specific projects and doesn’t cover our day-to-day operating costs.

• Membership is an invaluable cultural component to the Polk County community. Not only do memberships provide significant financial support for our museum to operate on, it allows us to continue to offer FREE admission into the museum and offer free educational events and activities to schools, organizations and our Polk County community.

• Members receive:

  • A copy of our quarterly issue of our newsletter, The Chronicler

  • Half off Museum events

  • Free staff research in our archives (up to one hour) and half off additional research time spent in archives. See our archival research policy for more information.

  • 10% discount on museum gift shop items

• Note: our memberships do not auto-renew each year. The Museum will contact you at the end of your membership year to ask if you’d like to renew your membership.

NEW! Become a Room Sponsor

The Polk County Historical Society spends a lot of time and volunteer hours keeping our exhibits clean and preserved. We do this in stages. Each winter, we pick one or two exhibits we would like to update and give a deep clean. This winter is no different.

We have recently completed the restoration of our jury box. Visitors can now sit in the box and see what the jurors saw. We have also recently completed a rotating exhibit downstairs across from the jail cell. This exhibit, “things that could land you in jail” features some artifacts from Polk County’s moonshine days.

Our next project will involve a lot of organizing and shifting exhibit spaces around. We plan to move the town exhibit upstairs into the courtroom and change the town/school room into an evolution of technology and music exhibit.

This newest project will take several volunteer hours and will cost money (largely in the form of acid-free storage solutions and display holders) to complete. If you are interested in lending your time to help us, please reach out to our Director (info@polkcountymuseum.org) or call (715) 485-9269. We’d love your help!

If you’re not able to volunteer your time but still want to help, please consider sponsoring one or both projects. We are incredibly grateful to our donors and plan to thank these room sponsors in the exhibit space once these projects are completed.

Please use the “Sponsor an Exhibit” button below to pledge your support for our town and technology exhibits.