Part of the joy of working at the Anoka County Historical Society is having history at your fingertips as you J-O-B. One of the challenges is deciding how best to share this trove of information with the community.
We launched History 21: The Podcast in late December to engage people who prefer an audio delivery to a more visual format. As podcast lovers ourselves, staff often drive, wash dishes or take a walk with various programs chatting in their ears — and there is NOBODY else out there focusing on Anoka County History!
Episode six, located on AnokaCountyHistory.org in “History 21” or on the blog, features a portion of an interview recorded in 2008 with Denise DeMars, the first female firefighter with the Columbia Heights Fire Department. DeMars joined the department in 1978 after seeing an ad in the newspaper, only to become a full-time firefighter two years later. Her interview discusses how she navigated sexism in a male-dominated field as well as experiences fighting fires or investigating arson scenes as a fire marshal.