News: Thorp - Museum Musings (Aug 2014)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Hughes, Sliwka, Hunt

----Source: Thorp Courier (Thorp, Clark Co, WI) 8/06/2014

Museum Musings (Thorp - 2014)

All aboard! The trains are in the station - the Thorp Museum station, that is. The Thorp Area Historical and Telephone Heritage Museum is excited about the new exhibit this summer.

Alan and Stephanie Hughes have donated their model trains and memorabilia that Alan has been collecting for the past several years. This includes O-gauge trains from as early as the 1920’a vast collection of Lionel models, as well as antique toy cars, planes, and boats. Visitors can watch two of the trains race around the tracks, while children enjoy finding the robber, hobo, and other characters, and thrill to see the man come out of the little white house.

School students who toured our museum this spring still have time to redeem their coupons for a free order of fries at McDonald’s.

While touring the Telephone Heritage Room in the museum, visitors may also marvel at the antique telephones, switchboards, and equipment (even the birds’ nest) that were so important to the growth of communication in Thorp, as well as the rest of the country.

History Buffs can learn more about the first family to settle in Thorp, as well as Polish and German settlers. Come see artifacts from the early People’s Exchange Bank, Mattes Livestock Market, Blue Moon Cheese Factory, and Thorp Finance Corporation. The museum also pays homage to the men and women from Thorp who served in the military.

Stop in and step back in time to discover what the Thorp Are Historical and Telephone Heritage Museum has to offer our friends and neighbors in our community.

Located just three blocks west of Washington Street, at 307 W Birth St., the museum is open every Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. through Labor Day, or be appointment, call Sue: 715-669-5943 or Ed: 715-669-3739. We’re on the path by the Polish Cow!

Penned from the past: “I remember being in my parents’ car, stopped at the Washington Street crossing, waiting for a Soo Line passenger train to clear the Thorp Depot.” Richard Sliwka, about the Robert Hunt painting he donated to the museum.