A Trip to the Museum

As I mentioned in my last post, on Friday I was going to sell my car and vacate the house before the liquidators came to clear it out.  For the remaining days before I fly to Mexico, I am staying in a hotel.  Since I have no transportation, my friend Frank is staying with me.

Saturday we drove to Cleveland to visit a museum which I have not seen in years and which Frank had never seen... the Cleveland History Center of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

  

As you enter from the parking lot, the first hall is devoted to the history of Cleveland.

Among the items on display there is a wooden model of Cleveland's iconic Terminal Tower.  When it was completed in 1927, it was the second tallest skyscraper in the world.

This statue of Superman is a reminder that the comic book character was created by Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

The Lunar Module Descent Engine used in the Apollo Moon Program was built in Cleveland by TRW, Inc.

One portion of the History Center is a museum unto itself... the Crawford Auto-Aviation Collection.  Although we think of Detroit as the center of the automotive industry, many of the early auto companies were based in Cleveland.

The collection was begun by Fred Crawford, a Cleveland industrialist.  He was notoriously frugal, and his first car was this 1924 Ford Model T.

This touring car was built by the Baker Electric Car Company of Cleveland and was the most technologically advanced car of its day.  One hundred years before the Prius, this car was a hybrid that combined a gasoline internal combustion engine with an electric drive.

This 1906 Imperial Runabout was also manufactured by Cleveland's Baker Company.

This car was made by the Peerless Motor Company, another Cleveland automaker.

A 1903 Model A Cadillac

A 1960 Ford Thunderbird in stainless steel

A 1930 Packard Sport Phaeton

There are a number of vintage aircraft in the collection.

Cleveland has a strong connection with aviation history because for twenty years, beginning in 1929, it was the home of the National Air Races.

The races came to an end in 1949 when a pilot lost control of his plane and crashed into a house in Berea, just a block from my (former) home.

The gondola of a Goodyear blimp, manufactured in nearby Akron, Ohio.

One of the highlights of the museum is the restored carousel which was a part of Cleveland's popular Euclid Beach Park from 1910 until the park's closure in 1969.  Visitors to the museum are allowed to ride the carousel.

I remember my mother telling me that her aunt and uncle lived on the east side of Cleveland near Euclid Beach Park, and that they would take her to the park when she was a girl.  I could not help but feel sentimental as I rode the carousel thinking that she had certainly riden it many decades ago.  

There will be more from this museum in my next post.