Surrounded by small wineries and standing right on the riverfront, Hermann reminds some visitors of a Rhine Valley village, its German heritage kept alive at the Historic Hermann Museum housed in the old Deutsche Schule at 4th and Schiller Streets downtown. The Jackson County Historical Society Archives and Research Library contains 20,000 photographic images, a 2,000-volume library of reference books, periodicals, manuscripts, early newspapers, books, letters and more. The Book Shop sells more than 600 titles, including maps and books related to Jackson County, the westward expansion, the Civil War and women's history, as well as stories for children. Related gift items also are for sale. In addition, we are blessed to have the Mid-Continent Public Library for genealogy research.
Internet access is open to the public.
The Genealogy Department's 12,000-foot annex is next door. The genealogy collection includes the U.S. population censuses for 1790 to 1920, as well as family and county histories. The center offers a computerized family fearch program, including a library catalog with access to the church's Salt Lake City records, an international genealogy index of more than 250 million names, an ancestral file, a Social Security index and Scottish church records. The center also contains county and state records, family histories, and other records. This library offers Jackson County marriage licenses on microfilm from the late 1820s to 1997.