HURON — Huron Connect has come together with a team of enthusiasts to organize an Escape Room Experience called “Huron’s Hidden History,” which will run from 6 to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Feb. 9-10.
A group of Huron Connect  - formerly the Huron Young Professionals - board members got together to discuss the ideas and planning of the event, which brought together the team of organizers, including Levi Kary, Ben Nelson, Matt Sibley and Rich Bragg.
“The purpose for this event is to be our kick-off for the new year, it is our membership drive, we will be doing discounted memberships for people who come to the event and join,” explained Bragg.
The group has gone above and beyond, to create a unique escape room experience with original aspects to the story line, specifically tailored to tie into the Huron community.
“We’re starting from scratch, coming up with all the puzzles and it has been quite the process, we’ve got a central story that the whole thing follows, there’s a series of puzzles that you’re trying to solve, in doing so you figure out the overreaching mystery,” said Kary. “We’re a local group so we wanted to tie it together with Huron — it is historical fiction.”
“We were the four who had the passion and we have been meeting regularly,” explained Bragg. “The story line is a narrative so we’ve had to write a backstory and create characters. It’s still first and foremost an escape room, but we have spent a lot of time on the narrative to make sure that everything is cohesive.”
“Something that all of us, especially Levi, had a passion for was intertwining all four of those rooms into a larger story, so in essence you’re solving each of the four individual escape rooms, but then along the way you earn clues towards the larger story and then at the end of the night, you use the clues you earned in each of those rooms, to then be able to solve the big final reveal.”
Six teams will work their way through four rooms of puzzles during the course of the evening, while taking breaks in between when participants can enjoy food, which is included in the price, along with time to socialize.

“There will be built in time for just the social aspect in addition to the escape rooms,” Bragg said. “We have been nervous because as far as we’re aware, we can’t find any record of this exact idea being done before. The idea of intertwining individual escape rooms and a larger mystery; we haven’t been able to find anyone who has done that. It makes it exciting that we can bring something new, but it has been nerve-racking because we’ve been blazing new territory.”  
This unusual approach to an interesting twist on a traditional escape room may be a challenge, but the team of organizers expressed how much fun they have had putting the event together, with the hope of continuing it as an annual event.  
“It’s something we would like to do again. We’ve had a lot of fun putting it together, so we’re hoping it goes well and is well received, and then it will probably become an annual Huron Connect event,” Kary said.
“In addition to coming up with everything, we also have to make it era appropriate because there is a historical aspect to it. So you have to be mindful of that when you’re coming up with the puzzles and the clues. It has to be believable from the time period,” said Kary. “That’s been a fun challenge too.”
Every detail of the event has been carefully researched and planned out, including the location as a historic building creates an ambiance suited for the event.
“The building that we are in, Top Floor Events, is a Masonic Lodge and it is safe to say that the building itself is a character in the mystery,” said Bragg. “It’s been fun to do the research, a lot of which has been from the ‘Huron Revisited’ publication. We’ve also been to the library to go through the microfilm of the old Plainsman editions.”
The participants can expect to be kept on their toes throughout the course of the evening, with a variety of different puzzles to suit the various abilities of individuals.
“We’ve tried to do a variety of different puzzles so people with different strengths will be able to contribute,” explained Kary.
Huron Connect is a local group for people to engage in activities and come together to strengthen the community. The group hosts events throughout the year, such as the Harvest Fest, which allows people of all backgrounds, ages and professions to unite.
“We use the name Huron Connect now because it is a little more encompassing,” Bragg said. “I don’t think it will change our organization much in terms of the activities that we do. It’s just that it will make us a little more welcoming to more people that want to be a part of the group,” said Bragg.
Teams are required to pre-book and arrange payment to the event in order to allow the evening to run smoothly.
Bragg explained, “We have a night that is going to be very full already, and we won’t have time to be doing a long registration process at the event.”
There’s still time to book as the popularity of the event sparked the group to organize the event to run a second evening.
“We initially just launched thinking it would just be the Saturday, but we had enough teams already to fill that first night up, so we have also opened it up to do it Friday, Feb. 9, as well for additional teams,” said Bragg. “Anybody that wants to do it should get their names in right away because the slots are filling up pretty quick.”
For more information on price and booking, contact the Huron Chamber for sign up sheets. Information is also available on the Huron Connect Facebook page.