Marshall Public Library was thrilled to host a traveling exhibition from the Museum on Main Street (MOMS), a Smithsonian outreach program. "Spark! Places of Innovation" from February 24 thru March 30, 2024.

Spark! Places of Innovation explores the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that sparks innovation and invention in rural communities. Inspired by an exhibition by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the exhibition features stories gathered from diverse communities across the nation. Photographs, engaging interactives, objects, videos, and digital stories bring a multilayered experience to reveal the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each town. Technical, social, cultural, or artistic– every sort of innovation story is as unique as each community and will be represented in Spark! Places of Innovation.

The story of human history is written in inventions and innovations. People are problem solvers. Sometimes we invent. More often, we innovate, introducing a fresh idea or an invention into use in some way that creates a new way of doing or thinking. Rural Americans are creating new products, processes and experiences that change local life and sometimes reach far beyond. Yet, invention and innovation truly flourishes in some places and not others. Why? 

In conjunction with the "Spark!" exhibition, Marshall Public Library has created local companion components that focus on innovation in Marshall including the Handy Writers' Colony, Gaslight Art Colony, and Cork Medical Center. 

The Handy Writers' Colony

Remembering the Handy Writers' Colony

Turner Family Memories of the Handy Writers' Colony

Gaslight Art Colony:

Jo Rich-Vadas 

Medicine:

Young Dr. Turner Visits Dr. Mitchell

Cork Medical Center Beginnings (Jim Turner)

Cork Medical Center Today (Denise Pine-Mattas)

Dr. Tom Catena

An Angel Among Us - Dr. Tom Catena (interview by Mike King)