The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-10-03
FORD MUSEUM
TO Be Opened
ON OCTOBER q.
The America That Was
Will EnthraII Thousands
of SightSeerS.
NoTABLES TO ATTEND
Everything That Entered
Into Life of Older Days
Is on Display.

By NEA Serrfce
DETROIT, Oct. 3.-A solid ten
acre section of the America that
use dto be" will be thrown open for
used to be" will be thrown open for
who is in a large measure respon-
sible for the America that Is now"
Henry Ford's $5,0O0000 museum
Of American antiquities will be
opened in the presence of notable
men.
President Hoover will be here, and
Thomas A. Edison, celebrating the
fiftieth anniversary Of his invention
of the incandescent electric light;
Harvey Firestone, Nine. Curie OF
France, and many others.
Ford's museum is an amazing
thing. 1t covers more than ten
acres on the Ford estates in Dear
born, and it includes-well, practi-
cally everything that any one in
tereSted in the America that used
to be possibly could want to see.
Famed Buildings There
A great many famous buildings
stand BODYBUILDING moved for
hundreds of miles from their origi-
nal sites, erected exactly as they
were before.
Thomas A. Edison's famous Men
10 park laboratory, in which the
household electric light bulb was
devised, stands here, with EdiSon's
original laboratory equipment. in
tact. Both were moved from New
Jersey and regretted.
Nearby is a two-story frame
house-Mrs. Jordan's boarding house
near Menlo park, where Edison,
Samuel insult and other engineers
lived in the early days. This house
was the first building in the world
to be ignited by electricity.
Not far away are the machine
shops in which the electric dynamo
was invented, and nearby is the
laboratory that Edison used for
forty years in his experiments at
FIT. Myers. Fla.
Red SchoOIhouse Saved
Standing off to one side is the
little red schoolhouse which Ford
attended as a boy in the little
Scotch settlement near Dearborn.
Not far off there is the postofice
which the people of Phoenixville,
Conn, built in 1903. Luther Bur-
banks office, built at Santa Rosa,
Cal, is there, too. A little farther
on are the old Loranger saw and
grist mills from the River Raisin,
near Monroe, Mich, beside another
grist mill built in Haverhill, Mass,
in 1898. e
Also present is the old Caleb Smith
blacksmith shop, immortalized by
LongfelloW, brought intact from
UXbridge, Mass.
The buildings, interesting as they
are, constitute only a small part OF
the museum, however.
Many Vehicles Exhibited
In one section there is an amaZ-
ing collection of vehicles, showing
types of practically every form of
transportation ever used in America.
There are the colonial gigs, the
ancient caleche Of the Pilgrims, the
old mail coaches Of Revolutionary
days, the famous Conestcga wagons
and prairie schooners, the Concord
coach, the Pennsylvania buckboat
that used to be called the Adam
and Eve Wagon" because it was
built for two.
Besides, there are the first Amer1-
can light spring wagon, the phaeton,
the ordinary buggy, the victoria, the
.rockaway, the racing sulky, the OK
cart, the light sleigh for winter use
and, of course, the first of all the
fivvers, quaint and angular with It's
high wheels. its kerosene lights, its
tiller and its exposed fly wheel.
To finish this collection there are
samples of modern automobiles.
Locomotives on Display
Fords collection Of locomotives is
no less complete. One part Of his
museum looks like the roundhouse
OF some historically minded railroad.
Practically every type Of early To-
connective is represented here, to-
gcther with modern ones.
Adjoining the locomotive exhibit
IS an exhibit of threshing machines.
Historians say that Ford has a
sample of every kind Of threshing
machine ever used in America, from
the primitive fail down to the most
modern motorized machine.
There is also an exhibit Of plows,
from the affair used by the New
England colonists to the huge gang
plows Of the wheat belt, which cut
fourteen burrows at once and re-
quire a 3o0-horse power engine TO
pull them.
Following these is an aviation
section, in which every type Of air.
plane is represented. Rubbing ell
bows with it is an exhibit OF, liter
ally, scores Of sawmills, both water
power and steam, large and small,