By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Edward Franklin Sox, a prominent man in a variety of ways in Albany years ago, is a name pretty much lost in the city’s history.

The Illinois native, who died in 1928, taught English literature and mathematics at Albany Collegiate Institute, was “principal” of Albany’s public schools, operated a hardware business, was active in civic, church and political affairs and was a veteran of the Civil War.

Here’s a detailed look at the life of Edward Sox…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Probably no one could have predicted after Millersburg was first recognized as a community in 1871 that it would become a major economic center or identified as one of the fastest growing cities in the state.

Yet that’s just what happened. But let’s begin with the area’s early days…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member & Kay Burt, Museum Member

Photo Courtesy Kay Burt

After a year hiatus, the next Albany Regional Museum-sponsored History Through Headstones Tour is planned for Wednesday, July 28 at Riverside Cemetery.

This is the 11th year for the free event that will run from 7 p.m. to dusk.

The cemetery is on Seventh Avenue S.W., west of Samaritan Albany General Hospital. There is plenty of parking on both sides of the street…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

The Great Fraternal Movement in America flourished from 1865-1918, when one in every five men belonged to one or more fraternal societies.

Several of those groups were active in Albany, and buildings where at least two of the societies met still stand downtown.

The Freemason’s St. John’s Lodge No. 17 meets in the Masonic Building, 425 First Ave. N.W., while Knights of Pythias members gathered upstairs at Third and Lyon streets, the structure that once housed the White Rose floral shop.

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

It was 1940 and although the attack on Pearl Harbor was months away, the government already was looking for potential military training locations, expecting that the United States would eventually to be drawn into a war in Europe and in the South Pacific.

Rumors circulated about one of those sites being about six miles north of Corvallis along Highway 99W. That information gave the farmers and townspeople of the small community of Wells the jitters…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

With the arrival of spring, here’s a fun way to learn about some of the cities that were settled with great promise in Marion and Polk counties but ended up in most cases disappearing altogether: And it's a chance to teach children some history while enjoying a family road trip…

By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member

Early travelers going to and from Albany managed to get to their destinations, but it wasn’t always a quick or an easy trip…