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National Museum of Transport St Louis MO Catalog of collections Cliff Sax 1975
National Museum of Transport St Louis MO Catalog of the collections By Cliff Saxton Jr 24 Pages
Copyright 1967, 1973, 1975 32 pages
Barretts Tunnel and the pacific Railraod
Railroad Motive Power
Railroad passenger Freight and misc equipment
Rail City Transit vehicles
Local & Intercity highway passenger transit vehicles
Horse Drawn conveyances
Automobiles
Trucks & Trailers
Aircraft / space flight
Conduit systems
emerging collections.
Background
In 1944, a mule-drawn streetcar occupying otherwise-needed storage space in St. Louis was scheduled to be scrapped. A group of historically minded citizens learned of the car's existence and, recognizing the importance of retaining such relics as a permanent record of transportation evolution, organized a non-profit educational corporation to work toward artifact preservation. Land was acquired at Barretts Station in St. Louis County along the right-of-way of the historic Missouri Pacific Railroad, and the rescued mule car was soon joined at the site by hundreds of other significant exhibits depicting the technological development of the implements of transportation and communication.
Development
For 35 years, the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT engaged in vigorous battle with the elements and, occasionally, with the instincts of those who would tend to scrap rather than preserve. Its small paid staff, augmented by an army of dedicated volunteers and overseen by the late Mary Roberts, helped build the Museum into the finest broad-based historical transportation showcase in the nation. As in so many developing organizations, all that was lacking was serious community commitment to support the proper development of the project.
On 1 September 1979, the St. Louis County Department of Parks & Recreation formally assumed the operation and development of the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT through a lease, with an option to accept the facility as a gift at any time during the lease. It is anticipated that St. Louis County will exercise this option during the course of a major program of upgrading which is involving substantial facility construction and continued careful restoration of exhibits.
With the assimilation by St. Louis County of the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT, the private, non-profit corporation that founded the Museum became the "TRANSPORT MUSEUM ASSOCIATION" through Charter revision. This advisory body now serves the Museum in a supportive capacity similar to that of "friends" organizations operated in behalf of other significant public endeavors. At this time, the title to all real and personal property remains vested in the TRANSPORT MUSEUM ASSOCIATION.
Following an eight-month closure to permit uninterrupted construction work, the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT was reopened to the general public in the spring of 1980, commencing a new era of service to the metropolitan St. Louis area. Visually, the Museum has been dramatically revitalized to the delight of the photographer, the serious student of transportation history, the child taking his first steps inside a train, and the adult fondly recalling the days when transportation did not always mean the automobile.
Purpose
Philosophically, the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT maintains its original purpose: to store, disperse, and extend knowledge by preserving the actual historical devices that relate mankind's growing dependence on rapid and widespread movement of information, people, and materials; by promoting an instructional program; and by providing artifact and library research source materials. The Museum's dynamic portrayal of history stimulates the creative imagination needed to solve further problems of time and distance. Measuring against the past furnishes perspective for evaluating the present - and planning the future.
The NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT has demonstrated both teaching function and popular appeal to generations of St. Louisans and visitors from around the world attracted by the rich diversity of exhibits and drawn back for subsequent visits by the warm reception they receive from a knowledgeable and sincerely interested staff. The Museum's 40-acre site will accommodate future growth and is conveniently located within one mile of the Interstate highway system (1-270).
As the Museum continues to expand, emphasis is being placed upon attractive and meaningful presentations of various transportation modes: animal-powered vehicles will recapitulate transportation from the Industrial Revolution into the 20th century; marine relics and models will trace the growth of waterborne travel and shipping; railway equipment will demonstrate the evolution of simple goods cars into modern mass-handling devices; trucks, buses, and automobiles will illustrate the importance of the pneumatic tire and the paved road; conduit systems will show the movement of gases, liquids, and solids by pipeline; air and spacecraft will depict achievements in flight; communications systems from smoke signals through data processing will relate the transmission and storage of information.
Community
Metropolitan St. Louis is the home of a unique cultural and educational institution. The NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORT, now in its fourth decade, represents a comprehensive transportation and communication museum of national distinction whose common facilities of administration and physical plant function at lower cost than would multiple specialized museums. As a cultural asset, the Museum makes St. Louis a better place in which to live; as a popular attraction, it promotes tourism. Similar establishments are important resources of several foreign countries. Centrally situated St. Louis is a choice location in the United States for such an undertaking where the exhibits assert the bygone, current, and future prominence of the area as a transportation and communication hub.
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