Page 28 2025 Hometown HEROES Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS June/July 2025 1800s and early 1900s. Evidently there might have been a printing press in the room putting out a newspaper during that time frame. Bill meticulously preserved those old papers, straightened them out, scanned them, and indexed them.” As Coers said, “There is no limit to what Bill Donath can and will do when preserving history. He has researched and printed a book on the Spanish Flu and another one on the Word War I Veterans of Logan County. If Bill is ever asked a question about a topic that he doesn't have an answer to, he will research it until he has most, if not all, of the information to share with the person or group asking.” Coers is thankful for Donath’s dedication and hard work in preserving and promoting the history of Logan County. Ongoing projects Donath is involved in many ongoing projects including organizing drawer file cabinets containing thousands of files for family surnames, towns and townships. In addition, Donath started and organized the extensive vertical file collection at LCGHS. This collection is now being reorganized and digitized. Something else Donath has indexed is the website of The Lincoln Herald on microfilm for the years 1859-1873. It is now available on the Society’s website. The Society’s Quarterly, Roots & Branches newsletter for the years 1979-2021 are another item Donath has indexed. There is also the Regan Collection indexed by Donath, which is now available on the Society’s website. John Regan compiled this Collection, made up of 36 volumes of newspaper clippings from Logan County. A major undertaking Donath worked on is the conservation of the Shew Collection, which contains nearly 800 issues of the Lincoln Herald. The Lincoln Herald is the oldest existing newspaper from Logan County, established in 1856. As Coers noted, copies of the Herald were found in the attic of the MKS Jewelry store when it was closed in 2017. The Shew family was most generous in their donation of these papers to LCGHS. This collection covers 1873-1882, 1884, 1889, 1894, 1895. The process Donath did to restore these papers consisted of humidifying and sanitizing the papers, pressing them, cleaning, photographing, digitizing and indexing every issue in the collection. Donath’s next major project is digitizing the records held by the Logan County Cemetery Maintenance District. In 2023, Donath started the YouTube channel logancoil1839, where he posts “how to” videos for working with collections of historically important information for Logan County. It also has videos of historical Information of Logan County residents. Books Donath has authored in the past twenty years include Logan County During the Civil War, The Early Years, Logan County's Civil War Dead, Generosity, The Story of Logan County During the Great War and
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