Devin B. Payne (Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites)
How do you steward history at a state historic site when it is regularly named one of the top ten most haunted places in America? Visitors often seem more interested in the haunts than the historic happenings. Working to make space for beliefs that fall outside of the official historic record is not easy. There are tensions to navigate between the organizational mission, public perception, and community stakeholders. The result is a site more integrated in the local community, creating interest for diverse groups, and allowing the official historic record and the unofficial one to exist and persist.
Part of 01-13 Scary Stories Middle America Tells in the Dark, Thursday, November 02, 8:30 am–10:00 am