MAYVILLE – Jon Schmitz, a local historian and former Chautauqua Institution archivist, will speak during the Chautauqua Town Historical Society’s June talk, “Some Stories About Chautauqua.”

The society’s programs are on the third Thursday of the month. The talks are in the Veteran’s Memorial Meeting Room of the Chautauqua Town Hall, 2 Academy St., Mayville.

As Archivist Emeritus of the Chautauqua Archives, Schmitz is perhaps the foremost authority on “official” Chautauqua lore. Schmitz will recount some of his favorite Chautauqua stories during his discussion at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 18.

Before coming to Chautauqua, Schmitz lived in a number of different places. His family moved around frequently. He was originally from Los Angeles, and then lived in Milwaukee, Wisc., Bloomington, Indiana, Washington, D.C., and Germany for a year. By the time he was a teenager, his family had settled in Canada. From 2002 to 2025, Schmitz served as Chautauqua Institution’s archivist and historian. He was the primary steward of records, artifacts and institutional memory. During his tenure, Schmitz modernized and organized the Institution’s historical collections, making them accessible to researchers and the public.

One of his primary achievements was overseeing the opening of the Oliver Archives Center as the primary home of the institution archives. Schmitz also oversaw preservation and digitization efforts that placed most archival photographs online, along with The Chautauquan Daily’s archive, and the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle magazine The Chautauquan.

His work also included acquisitions, appraisal, arrangement, description, copyright and public education through writing, lecturing and mentoring.