Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 11/30/2022
WALES – The Wales Historical Commission was awarded $98,000 from the Massachusetts Rural and Small-Town Development Fund. The commission applied for the Community One Stop for Growth Grant back in June. They received word and notification of the award via email in November and they formally announced it on the town website after the state announcement.
“We are ecstatic to receive state funding for our Old Town Hall building located at 3 Main St.,” said Robyn Chrabascz, the Historical Commission Clerk for the town of Wales. “It has been a long time since this building has had this much attention.”
The Historical Commission is a Massachusetts legislated commission in each local town. The town of Wales adopted that Massachusetts General Law in 1970 The Historical Commission can advise elected officials or other boards on historic preservation issues around historic buildings, municipally owned historic buildings, master planning and other things. They might receive inquiries from state agencies such as Massachusetts Historical Commission asking for their comment if there’s a federally or state funded project in town.
Also, commissions are generally responsible for community-wide historic preservation planning.
“The history of our Historical Commission in Wales has been deeply tied together with the Historical Society in Wales,” Chrabascz explained. “One of the reasons we were initially created because the townspeople wanted to save the Old Town Hall building. It has been such a struggle since the town fully acquired rights to the building in the 1950’s to keep that building in safe working order and find a good use for it going forward.”
Chrabascz has been the clerk since 2019 when the commission restarted. From then on, they have been looking for ways to not only work on the day-to-day operations of the current building and the ability to manage the historical collection that the town of Wales has by creating the museum in Old Town Hall, but also ways to fund it. As a registered architect, Chrabascz has an eye for buildings and could see that the Old Town Hall needs some work. She knew it was going to be time to bring in a design team and get a feasibility study done as well as an existing conditions survey to find out what the condition of their building is and what is needed to maintain it.
Chrabascz had seen the Massachusetts Rural and Small-Town Development Fund come out last year, but they were not ready for it. This year, the Commission was ready and elected Chrabascz to take on the entire application process. The Commission will hire a design team to evaluate an underutilized space at 3 and 5 Main St. including the building, site, and adjacent town-owned parcel, to document conditions and recommendations for repair. There’ll also be a review of the feasibility of the present site to continue hosting the public access studio, museum, and re-open the meeting room, or other town cultural functions.
“We want to make sure that the community is involved in its history,” Chrabascz said. “Whether that’s through a building or learning about the residents of the past or the mill history of our town. It’s important to live in the future and move forward, but to never forget our past.”
To learn more information on the Wales Historical Commission, visit the town’s website at www.townofwales.net.