The Allen County
Historical Museum
By ROBERT C. WHEELER*
An Allen County dream is about to become
a reality. Late in
1955 the new Allen County Historical
Museum will open to the
public, an event long awaited in and
around Lima. Few cities in the
country can boast such facilities for
preserving and interpreting their
past.
The new museum will have, in addition to
ample exhibit space, an
auditorium seating 225, a local history
library, and a thirty-car park-
ing area. According to James A.
MacDonell, president of the Allen
County Historical Society, the museum
will operate with a staff
of four--a curator, Mrs. Harry B.
Longsworth, an assistant cur-
ator, a guard, and a janitor.
As an educational feature, near the
museum, on a short piece
of narrow-gauge track, will rest an
eighteen-ton, Lima made, Shay
locomotive. Gift of the National Lima
and Stone Company and
restored by the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton
Company, the Shay will
represent Lima's oldest continuous
industry. It was the Shay locomo-
tive which, in the 1880's,
revolutionized the lumbering industry. The
iron work-horse of the northern forests,
operating on a wooden
track, increased many fold the output of
logs. This same engine
also proved to be a boon to the mining
and quarrying industries.
Allen County's new museum actually began
in the minds of its
citizens back in 1938, when members of
the historical society dis-
cussed the need for a new historical
museum. Through the years
a collection of museum objects had been
housed on the upper
floor of Lima's Memorial Hall. The
historical society was grateful
* Robert C. Wheeler is field
representative of the Ohio Historical Society.
206
ALLEN COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM 209
for this makeshift home, but their dream
was for a beautiful, ef-
ficient, modern museum building.
Early in 1941 it was decided that funds
should be raised by public
subscription for such a museum. The job
of raising the funds was
contracted to the American City Bureau
of Chicago for a fee of
$5,000. The amount of the fee was a
private donation made for the
express purpose of carrying on the
campaign. Eighty-five thousand
dollars was pledged or donated, and the
building to house the
heating unit and the storage was built.
The erection of the main
building, however, was delayed by war
and inflation. The collected
funds were placed in several local
building and loan firms and banks
and in United States bonds. At least the
money was put to work,
and so ended 1941, '42, '43, and '44.
At the close of World War II the members
of the Allen County
Historical Society again considered
building the new museum, but
they found to their dismay that $85,000
in 1946 would do only
half of what it would have done in
1941--hardly enough to begin.
A $10,000-a-year goal was achieved until
the fund reached a point
where it appeared that another fund
raising campaign, with $45,-
000 as its goal, would permit the
erection of the building in the
size originally planned. Organizations
were promised the auditorium
as a meeting place, donors were promised
recognition, and so forth.
Finally, on November 11, 1953, the
contract was let. On Novem-
ber 17 construction began, and on the
following Flag Day, June 11,
1954, the cornerstone was laid with
appropriate ceremony.
The spring and summer of this year will
be especially busy for the
museum people of Allen County, for now
before them lies the tre-
mendous task of moving and installing
exhibits. All Ohio wishes
Lima and Allen County well in this
exceptional community project.