Reynolds Museum
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| Established | 1992 |
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| Location | Wetaskiwin, Alberta Canada. |
| Type | Provincial transportation, aviation, agricultural, industry museum |
| Director | Noel Ratch |
| Curator |
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| Website | reynoldsmuseum |
The Reynolds-Alberta Museum, in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada is one of 21 provincially owned and operated historic sites and museums.[1] It traces the mechanization of Alberta's transportation, aviation, agricultural, and industrial past from the 1890s to present, as cars and trucks replaced horse-drawn buggies and wagons, huge factories replaced the village blacksmith shop, and mechanized equipment replaced animal and human-powered farm implements. The stories told by each exhibit reveal how the daily lives of Albertans were affected during this period of rapid change.
The Main Gallery is designed as a "highway through time", beginning with a horse-drawn carriage of the late 19th century and featuring four stations; a 1911 factory, a 1920s grain elevator, a 1930s service station, and a 1950s drive-in. The centre of the gallery has artifacts and displays that showcase agriculture through the four seasons of the year.
The museum spaces include a restaurant, meeting rooms, exhibition display areas, 120 seat theatre, museum store, Resource Centre (non-lending library), Restoration Shop and Conservation Lab. The museum's 232-acre site includes farming fields, industrial equipment display, tour road, Aviation Display Hangar, collection storage facility, and fly-in access from the Wetaskiwin Airport. The museum has many operating artifacts which can be seen at special events. Some are operational throughout the summer as part of a Vintage Vehicle Tour program. A private company operates a 1940 WACO open cockpit biplane which offers rides.[2]
Featured artifacts include:
- a one-of-a-kind 1929 Duesenberg Phaeton Royale Model J
- the world's oldest known production Chevrolet, a 1913 Chevrolet Classic Six
- the world's oldest dragline, a Bucyrus Class-24 built in 1917
- a 1928 American Eagle biplane,
- a full-scale replica of the Avro Arrow
- a half-track vehicle used in the infamous Bedaux Expedition, the subject of the film "Champagne Safari"
The Museum also serves as home to Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame, a national organization paying tribute to the men, women and organizations who pioneered and advanced aviation in Canada.[3]
Location
The Reynolds-Alberta Museum is located in the city of Wetaskiwin on Highway 13, near the Wetaskiwin airport. The street address is 6426 40 Avenue, Wetaskiwin.
History
The Reynolds-Alberta Museum opened in 1992 as a project of Alberta Community Development and Alberta Infrastructure. It is named for Stan Reynolds, a Wetaskiwin businessman and world-renowned collector, who donated a core collection of 1,500 artifacts between 1982 and 1986 and continued to donate portions of his collection until his death in 2012. Stan had owned a local car dealership and always advertised that he would take anything in trade - therefore the large and varied collection of vehicles, airplanes and farm implements. The Reynolds-Alberta Museum's collections continue to grow through private donations.
Resource Centre
The Museum's Resource centre offers visitors public access to a large collection of motor vehicle, aviation, agricultural and industrial trade publication literature in Canada. Topics covered include automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, airplanes, tractors, plows, threshing machines, steam traction engines, fire-fighting equipment, road construction machinery, and more. The collection consists of books, magazines and newsletters, journals, newspapers, service manuals, parts manuals, owners' manuals, price lists, advertisement and subject files, research reports, and audio-visual materials, with more than 3,000 books, 50 current subscriptions and 70,000 pieces of trade literature dating from the mid-19th century to the present.[4]
Restoration Shop and Conservation Laboratory
Artifact restoration, maintenance, and conservation are done in the Museum's Restoration Shop and Conservation Laboratory.
Affiliations
The Museum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.
References
- ^ http://history.alberta.ca/mainfiles/aphsicm.aspx
- ^ "Open Cockpit Biplane Adventures". Government of Alberta. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
- ^ Reilly, Jack. "History of CAHF". Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 25 August 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
- ^ "Resource Centre". Reynolds Museum. Government of Alberta. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
External links
