Step inside the Bartholomew House in Richfield, and the decades slip away. You're in the cramped, maze-like rooms of a pioneer home, built when Wood Lake -- now separated from the house by buzzing traffic on Lyndale Avenue -- was a place to hunt.

The 1852 house is filled with period pieces like cast-iron stoves, a chair with cowhorn arms and art made of twisted hair. But exactly what is the story the house is trying to tell?

"The story of Richfield," said Sarah Hummel, director of the Richfield Historical Society....

Richfield won an AASLH award for a 2008 history book on the city. The Anoka County Historical Society has been recognized for an exhibit on the local impact of the Vietnam War. This year, AASLH leaders singled out the Wadena Historical Society for recording oral histories about the tornadoes that hammered the city in June....