Another small town museum, the Tucumcari Historical Museum. Like many small town museums, it contains an eclectic mix of small town memorabilia. One recommendation to visit described it as going through someone’s attic. (A characterization I should not have used in front of the docent.) There was lots of stuff but minimal organization. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our stop there.
Some highlights:
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- Reassuring news at the entrance.
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- This was just like my grandmother’s sewing machine: a Singer with a foot treadle, although my grandfather later converted it to electric. I learned to sew on it with the treadle.
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- A basement room full of rocks.
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- A musketoon, a short musket. It’s mostly associated with naval use, particularly by pirates. Located by a picture of a Western movie TV actor. (What did I say about organization?)
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- Telephone technology of the past. Manual call routing.
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- Bank of telephone switches with operators. If this were in Warren, Ohio, Kay’s Aunt Harriet would be the woman standing up to supervise.
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- Near Nara Visa, New Mexico was an aircraft target range. These devices marked the corners. We actually drove through Nara Visa on our way down to Tucumcari from Wichita.
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- Aircraft.
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- The fired live shells at planes using the range with this antiarcraft gun.
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- Polio victims sometimes wound up breathing only with the help of an iron lung. Knowing some who had poilo I cannot understand the anti-vaxx movement at all.
