In Monday’s edition of the LaGrange Daily News, we wrote about The Troup County Historical Society’s fundraising event, Putting on the Ritz. The event, which was held at Del’avant Event Center, included people dress ingin 1920s fashion for the Jazz Age themed gala and silent auction, which all went to supporting the Troup County Archives annual budget.

While it all looked like glitz and glamour, the event really is necessary for the archives for it to preserve history and engage the community. The archives has multiple pieces of items from different time periods, from clothes, to Bibles, to records and even that giant bail of cotton. There’s always something to intrigue people of different ages and backgrounds with the history of Troup County.

It’s often said that those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it in the future. It’s important to look back at our roots and understand what events happened and why they happened.

At the event, Shannon Gavin Johnson, the executive director of the Troup County Archives, presented a slideshow of the community benefiting from the archives. The archives gives guided tours of the city, has given a guided ‘ghost tour’ with the ghost stories of downtown LaGrange, celebrated the 100th birthday of the building it’s housed in and has paired with the school system to show off student work on local veterans.

The archives has helped engage people of all ages, and the fundraiser was as historically accurate as the rest of the events they host. History is important and the archives are preserving it and making it fun.