Nininger Moment #7 - The Nininger Museum Part 2
After the arrival of the Nininger's and their collection, came the task
of setting up display cases
for their museum, fixing up the rented building for the public, general
cleaning up and painting to
give a more professional look to the museum. The museum was without
electrical power and was
open as long as there was enough sun-light to illuminate the displays.
Often its opening was
when visitors came and were wanting to see the great collection under
glass or was closed early
on days of a lack of visitors. They cooked on a gas butane stove and
used gas lanterns to see
during the evenings. The inside walls were painted white to provide as
much light as long as the
days would permit. The main floor space was twenty by forty feet.
The tower was used for storage space and their bedroom was sixteen by
eighteen feet with
bookcases place to separate the kitchen. A small window opened west at
the foot of the bed.
Public rest rooms had been installed in former storage space and opened
out into the exterior
of the building.
About half of the tourist that would turn into the museum would read the
admission sign
of .25 cents for adults and .15 cents for children, would turn and leave
without checking the
magnificent display. The first day they had a total of sixty customers
who toured their display
and seemed well pleased. Admissions steadily increased the first year
with as many as a
hundred on occasion. The Nininger's sold literature and specimens to
help supplement their
income to customers and by mail order. Many of the visiting public
included strange stories
of meteorites that Nininger would recognize as a mistake. A sense of
humor was required to
deal with these stories and correct the error in such a way that the
customer was not offended.
Inside of the museum a customer could heft in their hands a meteorite
from outer space. The
center of the museum was some large Canyon Diablos from meteor crater
the center piece for
the museum. Often school groups would come out on tours as well as
visiting former college
students that Harvey had taught. In all some 33,000 paid admissions were
recorded on the
books the first twelve months with visitors from every state, forty
three foreign countries,
fifteen colleges and high schools, a few groups of scientists as well as
other miscellaneous
groups.
In all the museum operated on route 66 for three years before the
interstate drastically cut the
museums business down to half which made it less feasible to maintain
and support the
Nininger's. At its peak the museum housed some 5,000 meteorites from 526
different finds
or falls. It had displays on various stages of weathering of meteorites
as well as shapes and
sizes. A greater variety of specimens were present more so than any
other institution larger
or small. The museum had been made not only to support the Nininger's
but to provided a
much needed education on meteorites that was not present in even the
better colleges and
higher education facilities of the day.
Source: Find A Falling Star By H.H. Nininger
The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the
items written in the moments might be old out dated material and the
reader is advised to keep this in mind.
--AL Mitterling
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