Railroaders Memorial Museum - History

History

  • 1966 - An ad is placed in the Altoona Mirror searching for parties interested in establishing a Railroad Museum for Altoona.
  • 1967 - The group forms the Altoona Railway Museum Club and adopts the name Altoona Railway Museum Association.
  • 1968 - The National Railway Historical Society grants a charter to the association. Chapter members begin collecting railroad memorabilia and displaying historical objects at civic events, etc.
  • 1972 - The name Railroaders Memorial Museum is officially incorporated.
  • 1975 - Museum acquires the private rail car of Charles M. Schwab - The Loretto. The Altoona Redevelopment Authority sells the former Penn Central Railroad shop complex land to the Center Associates with an agreement providing that Center Associates make a 5-acre (20,000 m2) plot available for the Museum.
  • 1979 - Ground-breaking ceremonies are held on May 12.
  • 1980 - Museum celebrates grand opening on September 21.
  • 1985 - Museum acquires the PRR K4’s #1361 locomotive and moves it from the Horseshoe Curve to Altoona for restoration.
  • 1987-1988 - K4’s excursions haul thousands as the “Pride of Altoona” returns to the rails.
  • 1993 - Museum acquires former PRR master mechanics building and an adjoining parcel of land.
  • 1995 - Renovations to the master mechanics building begin.
  • 1997 - Exhibit fabrication and installation work begin.
  • 1998 - Grand opening of the new Railroaders Memorial Museum held on April 25.
  • 2002 - Scott Cessna becomes Executive Director
  • 2007 - RMM board fires management and lets Salone Marketing Group run the museum.

Read more about this topic:  Railroaders Memorial Museum

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
    —Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)