The index addition is a major step in our goal to index everything in the museum’s archives.”

Shirley Deethardt, president of the Brookings County Historic Society

Where is Peg Munky Creek, and who is the Brookings County woman after whom it’s named?

Does the Peg Munky flow to Lake Tetonkaha? Does the Sinjem Bridge cross over it? 

Where is Stamp Hill?

Those unfamiliar county places are sprinkled in between the nearly 2,000 Brookings County family names indexed from years of accumulated manuscripts, reports, scrapbooks and newspaper clippings in the archives of the Brooking County Museum in Volga.

Museum volunteers this spring invested hours going through documents to create the index guide which is useful in learning more about Peg Munky Creek and Stamp Hill, but more importantly, it’s helpful in finding a long-lost Brookings County friend or relative. 

“The index addition is a major step in our goal to index everything in the museum’s archives,” said Shirley Deethardt of Aurora, president of the Brookings County Historic Society. 

She said the 2,000 additional names of county citizens, places and things enhance the museum’s growing archives research capability, which also includes county school yearbooks, old telephone books back to the early 1900s, an the museum’s especially well-documented collection of obituaries back to the year 2000.

That well-indexed obituary collection is provided to the museum by the Brookings County Genealogy Society, which has collected and collated nearly 10,000 obituaries of deceased Brookings County citizens for nearly 25 years. 

Other books in the museum include hundreds of other obituaries which are now more quickly and easily found. 

“We are grateful to the members of the genealogical society for the years of obituaries they provided for public review,” Deethardt said. “It’s a valuable service.”

Also credited with adding considerable information to the museum archives over the years are the late Barbara Berhend, the late George and Evelyn Norby of Brookings, and former museum board member Grace Linn of Brookings, plus others.

In the newly created index list, Brookings County entities and Brookings City histories are the most often listed.  Volga’s historic items are a close second. Seventeen “Johnsons” and 12 “Petersons” are listed in the new index. The now defunct and historic former county seat town of Medary has 19 mentions. 

Among the more interesting personal names in the index are “Battle Axe Nicherslain” and a “Peg Leg Smith.” There’s even mention of the defunct town of Ahnberg’s beloved town dog “Spot.” 

And Peg Munky Creek?

It isn’t named after anyone. In the early days, surveyors in the northeast part of the county asked a farmer the name of the small creek. The farmer, Charles Lohr, smiled, and quickly made up the words Peg Munky Run. That’s what the surveyor wrote down in his note book. 

Lake Tetonkaha is the largest of the Oakwood Lakes. Sinjem Bridge is named after a nearby Sinjem family. Nicherslain was a popular employee of the company installing telephone lines in Brookings in 1899. A paved north-south highway in eastern Brookings County includes a long hill descent known as Stamp Hill near Basin Electric’s Deer Creek Station in eastern Brookings County.

The Brookings County Museum in Volga’s City Park is open from 1 to 4 p.m. seven days a week. Admission is free.

Chuck Cecil is an author, former Brookings Register columnist and a member of the Brookings County Museum board.