STRONG — The town has a rich heritage and history that includes toothpicks, Civil War soldiers, fires, croquet and a cemetery that is the resting place for the first registered Maine Guide.

From 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 9, area residents are invited to the Forster Memorial Building for an afternoon of local lore, genealogy, maps and intriguing images by Strong’s Historical Society, Public Library and Elementary School, with the High Peaks Alliance and Maine Historical Society.

Guests will be treated to an old-fashioned ice cream social with all the fixings after they view displays and presentations. The event marks the launch of a project that will include the Civil War Reconstruction years to the early 1900s. When the group has finished its project in May 2012, they’ll have uploaded dozens of photos, stories and maps to Maine Memory Network (www.mainememory.net), Maine Historical Society’s online museum. The society’s treasurer and local historian Carl Stinchfield currently has more than 3,000 scanned photos, documents and glass plate negatives. He hopes some of the gaps in the historical narrative can be resolved through community connections.

“We’re hoping that residents might come forward with old photos or letters or other treasures that we can photograph or scan to upload to our website,” he said.

Stinchfield has compiled a list of generational family names, many of which predate the Civil War. Strong once was known as “The Toothpick Capital of the World,” and the Strong Village Cemetery is the final resting place for Cornelia Thurza (Fly Rod) Crosby, Maine’s first registered Maine Guide. Stinchfield will share the history of “The Bridge That Changed the Map,” when East Strong residents chose to secede and join New Vineyard, rather than paying their taxes to build a bridge over the Sandy River.

“In fact, Strong has so much great history, we’ll need to narrow topics for our online exhibit,” Stinchfield said.

Teacher Crystal Polk’s students have researched topics, including Google Earth mapping of historic locations in the town, and other team members will share their goals for the project.

The Maine Memory Network has added more than 20,000 historical items contributed by historical organizations, providing viewers with a very distinctive and personalized view of Maine history. The site also offers lesson plans for teachers, examples of student history projects, and online tools for creating and sharing albums.

Groups have done online slide shows, told stories, shared their resources and made discoveries. Strong was selected as one of three Maine towns to receive grant funding from a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For more information, call 684-2195 or 684-3613.