Hamilton, now an unincorporated rural area on the Mower-Fillmore border, used to be a small town. Like many other towns that disappeared, Hamilton died out when the railroad was built near a different town. -- Matt Peterson/matt.peterson@austindailyherald.com

There’s a map at the Mower County Historical Society that has been around longer than Dustin Heckman has been the executive director. Yet it’s going to help Heckman with his next big exhibit. That map marks where several dead towns used to be. That map, and the documents the historical society are starting to compile, is going to be part of the new Ghost Towns of Mower County exhibit at the Mower County Fairgrounds.

“A lot of people are interested in ghost towns or lost towns, as some people call them,” Heckman said.

A cemetery lies north of Hamilton, an unincorporated rural area on the Mower-Fillmore border that became a town in the 1850s.

Towns like Frankford, which used to be the Mower County seat until it lost an election to Austin in the 1850s. The town dried up after that, according to Heckman.

“They fizzled out because of it,” he said.

There are at least 14 towns that have disappeared, like Frankford, Hamilton and Renova, or moved, like the old village of LeRoy. That’s not counting the places with a post office and little else, which still carries historical significance.

Heckman said the historical society recently obtained records from one such post office, which had business ledgers from a general store that sold goods to people. Families that have grown and fallen in prominence in the Mower County area are on that registry, and people should be able to point out how and where certain farms and families grew.

“We can tell right from the documents of this general store,” Heckman said.

As the Old Milwaukee railroad line was put in, standalone post offices that weren’t close to the trains would disappear. Heckman said he expects to find in his research that many of the ghost towns dried up because of the railroad and where it was placed. If towns were miles away from the railroad line, they were more likely to disappear.

The exhibit, which will go inside the original fairgrounds building, is the first stage in a process to update and plan for the future of the historical society. Heckman said the exhibit is a trial run of sorts as the historical society prepares an interpretive plan, something museums put together to plan the themes of its displays and develop plans.

“It’s one of those ways to show the public … what it’s going to do for our site,” Heckman said. “This is the type of exhibit we hope to produce out of it.”

Historical society officials have talked about creating an interpretive plan for a while, but no one has put together a plan for the organization before. That could hopefully change, as Heckman is waiting to hear from the Minnesota Historical Society whether they will fund Mower County’s plan. Heckman expects to hear about funding in February.

“It’s a lot of trying to create consistency and developing our plans for the future,” he said.

The historical society has yet to start the Ghost Towns of Mower County project, although they recently received $7,000 to fund the exhibit from the state historical society. Heckman has yet to hear final approval from the state to begin, and will start researching and planning with a consultant once he gets the go-ahead.

He will make a presentation about the county’s ghost towns in April at the Hormel Historic Home.

The exhibit is expected to open at some point in 2012, along with the Renova General Store, which will move into the same building space.