Dale Garber has plenty of historical information he is aiming to go through at the Goshen Historical Society. Photo by Nathan Pace.

By Nathan Pace
InkFreeNews

GOSHEN — If you have a question about the history of Elkhart County, you can try and find answers on the internet, or you can save some time and just ask Dale Garber. Garber has been a curator and on the board for the Goshen Historical Society going back 40 years.

“I’m curious about everything. Especially when somebody brings in something new we haven’t seen, such as pictures or information,” Garber said. “As much as I’ve learned, there are still people who will come in and ask me some things I’ve never heard of.”

There are still plenty of items Garber wishes to organize in the Goshen Historical Society. He has bookcases filled with binders full of documents he still wants to go through.

“Until recently, all this stuff was in my basement in home,” Garber said. “The last couple months it’s come here. I’m still working on and breaking it down more. Trying to get it more organized than what it is.”

The Historical Society is located at 124 S. Main Street in Goshen and the building itself is part of the exhibit in a way. When Garber and the Historical Society took it over in 1997, the building had existed for over 100 years with few updates. Electrical, plumbing, the furnace and more all had to be replaced.

What was not replaced was Garber’s appreciation for local history. He wrote a book about the Ariel Bicycle Company, a company that only existed for over a decade before going out business in 1900.

“Each chapter was a year. They had a well-built bike, but the bicycle conglomerates and the silver collapse at the turn of the century did them in,” Garber said.

He and his wife, Kay, are members of SPOOM, also known as the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills. They serve as treasurers for the Great Lakes region and the couple has visited gristmills across the country. The couple has three children all grown up.

Garber says he enjoys finding answers to people’s questions about Goshen’s history because each answer requires digging.

“You got to do some research and hunt for it. A lot of times it’s not something you can find on the internet,” Garber said.

Garber appreciates how the demographics of Goshen have changed over the decades and likes to share the history of the area to the Mexican population that calls Goshen home.

“From what I’ve seen they really enjoy coming through the museum. They spend time going through all the displays,” Garber said.

While he enjoys researching the history of the area the connections he has formed with locals when they visit are still his favorite aspect of the Goshen Historical Society.

“A lot of them just come in to see what’s going on,” Garber said. “We have a lot of people from different states come in just to see what’s locally interesting. Then you have your locals come in and a lot of times they just want to refresh their memory or they might just want to talk.”