Those walking into the Oswego Public Library in downtown Oswego only have to look up to find out a little about the history of the area.

A wood relief mural celebrating the history of Oswego and Montgomery was recently installed near the entrance doors to the campus, located at 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego.

“It’s an educational piece, which we love, as well as a piece of art,” Oswego Public Library District Director Sarah Skilton said.

A key next to the mural provides more information about what is depicted in the mural.

The former Oswego Drag Raceway on U.S. Route 34 in Oswego is one of the pieces of Oswego history depicted on the mural along with Fox’s Burger Bar, which had been located on Jefferson Street in downtown Oswego.

The mural also tells the history of Boulder Hill. In the summer of 1955, Don L. Dise purchased 716 acres known as the Bereman Boulder Hill Stock Farms with the hopes of building that community in the next quarter-century, according to the wood relief mural key.

Today, the unincorporated community has a population of more than 9,000 people.

This isn’t the first project that artist Tim Janda has done for the library district. He also made the medallion that displays the library’s logo in front of the Oswego campus as well as the medallion that is on the library district’s barn at 19 North Street in Oswego.

The Oswego Library Board worked with local preservationists to renovate the historic Kohlhammer Barn.

Little White School Museum Director Roger Matile was a big help to Janda.

“He gave me access to all the photo data base that they have,” he said. “But he’s also a wealth of information about the area. I would ask, ‘What’s the story with this and what’s with that?’ And he told me a story about almost every piece that’s on there. He knew that much. I couldn’t have found a better person to talk to, not being from the area. I only know so much about the region.”

Janda owns The Wooden Sign Company, which is based in Wisconsin.

Learning about the area was one of the things he liked best about the project.

“What I really liked was just kind of doing a deep dive and learning about a community that I knew virtually nothing about,” Janda said.

He hopes the mural will help people want to learn more about Oswego and the surrounding area.

“If they dig a little bit deeper, than I feel we’ve done a good thing,” Janda said.