Save the Date!

Join the Forney Historic Preservation League and the Malone family for the public unveiling and dedication of Forney’s newest historical marker recognizing

Reeves Henry: Blacksmith, Inventor, Mechanic

Saturday, October 19th
210 E. Broad St.
Forney, TX 75126
On the back/Pacific St. side of the Cotton Gin
(near the former location of Reeves Henry’s shop)

Program begins at 10:00 a.m. with unveiling and photos to follow.
This event is free and open to the public.

We don’t have any confirmed photos of Reeves Henry in our collection. The above is an AI rendering commissioned by Henry’s descendants taken from a photo of an unidentified man on the porch of the Malone house plus sketches from one of his approved patent applications for a cotton chopper. 

Press Release!

The Spellman Museum is proud to announce the opening of our new Genealogy Project. 

The Spellman Museum recognizes that an important part of our history is the people who lived here, raised families, and built our community. The purpose of the Genealogy Project is to aid people wishing to share and research these generations of our forefathers. Our goal is to preserve this important part of our area’s history.

Our Genealogy Department will be available by appointment only to help individuals in their research beginning September 6, 2024. Please email Spellman Museum of Forney History manager Kendall Nobles at historicforney@gmail.com. She will schedule your visit and email you a form with suggested information to bring with you. Research help will be available from 11:00am to 4:00pm on Fridays. Members of the Forney Historic Preservation League pay no fees, and non-members are charged $5 per session.

Please come and share old family photos and your family tree information with us. We will share any that we have with you. Photos will be scanned while you are here.

Please come and help us celebrate our heritage!

Deborah Singleton Stuart, FHPL Board Chair

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NOW ON SALE!

Tickets for the June 10, 2023 Historic Home Tour are now on sale! $20 for adults and $8 for kids 12 and under to visit five locations on S. Center and S. Bois d’Arc streets. Tickets are available for purchase at the Spellman Museum of Forney History and select other locations. We hope to see you there!

If you’re interested in volunteering as a docent for this event, please email us at historicforney@gmail.com.

SAVE THE DATE!

Save the Date for our upcoming Historic House Tour!
Saturday, June 10th we’ll be hosting a summer home tour of some historic houses and buildings along Center St. and S. Bois d’Arc. Tickets will go on sale soon! Follow the Spellman Museum on our facebook page for the latest info on the event. We hope to see you there!

Introducing 3rd Thursday Evenings at the Spellman Museum!

We are happy to introduce a new and hopefully ongoing event at the Spellman Museum. The Forney Historic Preservation League is partnering with the Forney Arts Council to host 3rd Thursday Evening at the Spellman Museum!

Themes are developed based on the traveling or rotating exhibit currently on display in the museum’s multi-purpose room (MPR). These 3rd Thursday Evenings will include activities such as guest speakers, demonstrations, crafts, films, music, and more – all plus food and drink!  We have the first three months planned through April and are developing programming for dates beyond.

The first event is Thursday, February 16th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. to complement our Literary East Texas exhibit from Humanities Texas.  This exhibit honors the work of 25 authors selected from more than 200 writers who have lived in and written about the eastern half of the state. This expansive part of Texas allows for a variety of settings from the Red River to the Piney Woods and the Gulf Coast. Passages of their works are illustrated by photographs taken especially for this exhibition by Nell Blakely. As the brochure states, “the goals of Literary East Texas are to encourage readers to discover and rediscover writers of the region, to match the words of these authors with photographs of the people and landscape they described, and to honor representative writers of the region.”

Activities for the event on the 16th include a book “blind date”, decorating journals and bookmarks, and book signings and sales from local Forney authors. Featured authors are:

Mike Farris, author of legal thrillers like A Death in the Islands, Isle of Broken Dreams, Wrongful Termination, and more.

(Author photos link to their pages on amazon.)

 

 

 

 

 

Arlene G. Stein, who will tell us about the adventures of Serious Henry and her line of children’s books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian Moreland, writer of supernatural horror such as Dead of Winter and Blood Sacrifices. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Elizabeth Lawless, author of Creative Monster and Western Legends, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All will be joining us February 16th for our first 3rd Thursday Evening at the Spellman. We hope that you will too!