Sac City Museum

08/09/2026

We have a great new display at the Sac City Museum! Kevin Johnson (Class of 1978) built a cider press in shop class, and recently donated it to the Museum. Included with this new display in the Hardware Store are the plans he used to build it in 1976, along with a story about how it was used! The Museum is open 1-4:30 on Saturdays and Sundays through September 6th.

07/26/2026

Our volunteers make the Sac City Museum run! They work throughout the week to clean, garden, work on projects and displays, etc. In these photos, they are working on our potting shed, a tribute to Joan Wilkerson. They regularly meet on Wednesday mornings at 9:00 AM. If you are interested in volunteering contact Lance Wilhelm or Marge Sands. Come enjoy the air conditioning to view the Museum, which is open from 1-4:30 on Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day through Labor Day!

07/24/2026

The Sac City Museum brought dozens of artifacts to Park View Care Center on July 22nd, and presented to 15 of their residents. The audience enjoyed seeing many things that they had used (or saw their parents use) in earlier years! How many do you recognize?

07/18/2026

Our newest display at the Sac Museum -- a pay phone -- shows how quickly technology changes. In 1960, there were about 1 million pay phones in the United States, and they reached their peak of 2.5 million in the mid-1990's. They seemed to be almost everywhere -- downtowns, gas stations, schools, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, and schools. In the late 1990's, cell phones grew exponentially in number, and pay phones disappeared rapidly. Today, there are fewer than 100,000 pay phones, mostly in large cities. The Sac Museum is open on weekends in the summer from 1-4:30. There is no admission fee, and the air conditioning is on!

07/12/2026

Thanks greatly to Princess City Solar's generous donation to the Sac City Museum!

06/27/2026

Today's the day to learn a lot about Iowa! And A REMINDER ABOUT THE CHANGE IN LOCATION! We are moving Tyler Sullivan's presentation to the Shull Center (the former East Sac Middle School), just a block south of the Sac Rec!
The Sac City Museum would like to invite you to a free program about the many cool places there are to see in Iowa. On Saturday, June 27th, at 1:00 at the Shull Center, Tyler Sullivan will present about his travels around the state, and highlight places that you might like to visit. He has visited 1,301 communities in Iowa over the past few years, and has many stories and insights to share. Please join us at 1:00 at the Shull Center on the 27th!

06/23/2026

CHANGE IN LOCATION! We are moving Tyler Sullivan's presentation to the Shull Center (the former East Sac Middle School), just a block south of the Sac Rec!

The Sac City Museum would like to invite you to a free program about the many cool places there are to see in Iowa. On Saturday, June 27th, at 1:00 at the Shull Center, Tyler Sullivan will present about his travels around the state, and highlight places that you might like to visit. He has visited 1,301 communities in Iowa over the past few years, and has many stories and insights to share. Please join us at 1:00 at the Shull Center on the 27th!

06/15/2026

The Sac City Museum would like to invite you to a free program about the many cool places there are to see in Iowa. On Saturday, June 27th, at 1:00 at the Sac Rec Center, Tyler Sullivan will present about his travels around the state, and highlight places that you might like to visit. He has visited 1,301 communities in Iowa over the past few years, and has many stories and insights to share. Please join us at 1:00 at the Rec on the 27th!

06/07/2026

As the anniversary of D-Day draws to a close, we honor the Sac Co veterans who died during WWII. The veterans are listed in alphabetical order beginning with Sac City and then alphabetically by town.

Sac County Veterans Lost in WWII by Tammy A. Vine and Susan Welch Jarnagin In World War II, Sac Co veterans fought on land in Africa, Asia, and Europe and at sea in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Pacific Theater. The scope was extensive, covering the Pacific and Indian Oceans, East As...

06/05/2026

A couple of generations ago, it was common for Iowa students to attend school only through the 8th grade, and so school systems held major “8th grade graduation” ceremonies to mark this accomplishment. This was true for both the “in town” schools, as well as for the one-room “country schools,” which until the 1940s educated more students than the schools that were in town. To help local students understand how education has changed over the past 85 years, four Sac County museums (Lake View, Nemaha, Odebolt, and Sac City) hosted the East Sac County School 8th grade and the Ridge View 7th grade on an all-day museum tour that was highlighted by an “8th grade graduation” lunch at the Chautauqua Building in Sac City.

The two schools spent about an hour touring each museum, answering “scavenger hunt” questions about the artifacts that were on display, then met in Sac City to eat sack lunches provided by the schools. Each school selected seven students to come up on the Chautauqua stage to answer questions that 8th grade students had to answer to “graduate” in the 1940’s. The winner of this “spelling bee”-style contest was Hadley Meister of East Sac County, and the runner-up was Carter Huegerich of East Sac. Students also learned a bit about the history of 8th grade graduations, which were all-day affairs filled with music, contests and speeches. They were commonly held at the Chautauqua Building, but also at other sites that could handle large crowds. For example, the 1940 graduation was held at the historic gym in Lake View, built in the 1930’s by the WPA and the CCC, which also built the Stone Piers, the Witch’s Tower, and the City Hall in Lake View, along with numerous other buildings throughout the county. That 1940 ceremony featured 128 8th graders who attended country schools throughout Sac County. One of the artifacts displayed to the middle school students was a very large 8th grade diploma that was awarded at the Chautauqua Building in 1919.

The students enjoyed the learning experiences, and a similar event is tentatively scheduled for the 2026-27 school year. Please consider visiting your local museum. In addition to the four mentioned above, there are three other museums in Sac County: in Lytton, in the City Hall in Auburn, and in the Depot in Wall Lake.