(bright music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska Stories, a look at collectors.

First, a relic hunter's artifacts and the history they reveal, (upbeat music) some of the fastest cars in the world and the man who loved them, (upbeat music) one husker fan's unique compilation of scrapbooks, (upbeat music) a rock collection like no other, (upbeat music) and the challenge of sorting a lifetime of possessions.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (soft guitar music) (soft guitar music) (soft guitar music) (soft guitar music) (soft guitar music) [Pete] When you started in the morning, you could probably see where you're gonna stop at night.

I would say if they made 10 miles would be a real big day, I would bet.

(soft guitar music) (soft guitar music) You see a lot of depressions out here on along the Oregon Trail, you know?

And I never did dig one but I think what happened is these covered wagon trains they had to stick together for protection.

If they had like 40 wagons, the military would send a company to accompany 'em.

And if somebody passed away during the night I think they would, the ground was hard, you know, I think they'd dig a shallow grave.

Just big enough to get 'em in and cover 'em up.

And they had to be ready to go by morning.

And I'm sure within two nights, the coyotes, badgers wolves, dug them up, you know?

'Cause you see the depressions but you never see anything that's very deep.

And I bet they didn't bury 'em very deep.

And think of how hard they had been to leave one of your loved ones.

(gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [Pete] The interstate ruined a lot of it, and it's too bad.

But down east here, when they were surveying it, I went down there and the trails were real obvious.

Deep and everything, and then I told the guys, I said, "You realize that you're ruining the Oregon trail?"

And they said, "Well, we'll just put a sign that says you're traveling on the Oregon Trail."

(gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [Pete] He said this was a ranch, which they called 'em.

And he never did say if that's the one he had worked at.

But dad always said, he said he came here and worked on a ranch and there were no cattle ranches.

So I assume it would've been on the Oregon Trail.

And he took us down and I remember walking around and seeing stuff.

You know, as a matter of fact, I picked up an arrowhead and then on, of course, I just loved the place.

(chuckling) And that was that terrible depressive blowout country in the thirties.

And I remember him taking his folks down to see his brother.

They lived in a sod house and they had just built on an addition of sod and it was still wet.

And anyway, I can remember the, everything was blowing and they told me to go out and look around.

And I think when the day was done we had like 40 arrowheads we'd picked up.

And I just remember they gave 'em all to me.

So, that was my first big start.

(gentle music) (gentle music) [Pete] In the early fifties it was so dry and it blew so much.

And at that time we didn't have the pivot irrigation.

And it had a tendency, of course, over winter to blow.

And those hilltops, it blew down to hard ground.

And gosh, all you had to do was walk out there and that's about all there was, was flint.

And it was easy to find an arrowhead.

Now it's not.

(drawer scratching) (drawer scratching) Well it's a Remington new model, which was popular in the Civil War period.

This particular one was lost along the Oregon Trail apparently, or possibly the owner was shot or whatever.

But it's fully loaded.

All of the cylinders still have their balls in 'em.

So, how it happened to be there, I don't know.

But anyway, that's where it was found.

And it's along the Oregon Trail.

(gentle music) [Pete] I think the most fun I had though, was probably digging bottles out of the old forts.

I just loved those old bottles.

Bitters, which is whiskey, they didn't like to call it whiskey, but it's what it was.

It was an age of alcohol.

(chuckling) They drank a lot of it.

We used to dig the crock ones.

They were too toned and they were ale.

And they must have lived off of that stuff because they were everywhere.

And I got to where I didn't even pick 'em up, I didn't like 'em because they'd throw 'em in the pit and break the good ones.

And there's some more of the old bottle.

That's the ale that I was telling you broke all the other bottles, pretty common.

I remember going to Wallace one time, the fort, couldn't find anything and it was getting late in the day, and I was starting to come home and the old town it was a trading post to Wallace and nothing left to it, just flat ground.

And I had my spade and I took a spade full out and hit a bottle, the first thing, you know?

And that little thing was hacked full of bidders bottles.

One of the best pits I ever hit and yet it wasn't three foot square and three foot deep probably.

But you never knew what you were gonna find.

(gentle music) It was beautiful morning and we went up there and she... we took the two kids and I looked around and pretty soon I found a depression, a pit.

(gentle music) And she put the baby or the blanket down on the grass and I started digging.

And I hit a bottle pit and I dug bottles.

(gentle music) And I told her a while back, I said you know, (gentle music) that's probably the best day of my life.

Probably the most pleasant day that I ever spent.

(gentle music) Oh, I can just sit there and just picture the covered wagons going by and all that stuff, you know?

It's just a calming place to go, for me anyway.

I hope the old Oregon trails there many many generations after I'm gone, (gentle music) I hope they make provisions that it's not to be destroyed, you know?

Now, I don't think there is anything if they wanted to build a highway over it, I think they could.

But I think it should be preserved.

(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (upbeat music) - [Carson] This is a collection of collections.

(upbeat music) - [Jason] It's a true history of racing in the automotive industry.

- [John] If you go to the Indianapolis Museum, you see IndyCars.

You go to the drag racing museum in Florida and you see drag cars.

Here, we have a wide variety of early racing history.

- [Narrator] Speedy Bill Smith and his wife, Joyce, are perhaps best known as the founders of America's oldest speed shop, Speedway Motors.

(upbeat music) But for Bill, cars were more than just his job.

- Bill started collecting pieces when he was 14 years old, so that would've been about 1943 or so.

- [Jason] My dad would get frustrated, 'cause he wanted to show off his stuff.

He was proud of what he'd collected.

And I think some of his buddies finally got onto him about having all this stuff back in a warehouse.

- [John] Nobody got to see it, and everybody that did see it say, "Bill, you oughta have a museum, "you oughta show the world what you've done."

And in 1992, he did take that step.

- [Narrator] The museum quickly outgrew its original location.

So in June of 2001, the collection premiered in its current location on Sun Valley Boulevard in Lincoln.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Carson] I'd call him an entrepreneur.

His love was cars, and what he was always looking for was a way to make money doing something with cars.

- [Jason] He bought his first car when he was 14.

(upbeat music) He turned it into a business called Bill's Hauling.

There's a great photo of my dad in that truck.

(upbeat music) He was a great businessman, (upbeat music) but I don't think he ever had the vision that the museum could be even bigger or more important than Speedway Motors.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Starting with early engine development, the museum guides you through the history of the automobile and the racing industry.

It begins at the turn of the century and progresses through to current technology.

- [Bob] We're always getting in new items, and so we're always changing the floor plan, little by little.

- [John] The artifacts are selected based on what we need to tell the story about.

We have about 32,000 documented in the system right now.

- [Bob] Some of them are as small as a pair of earrings and some of them are as big as a Duesenberg automobile.

Some of these things go back to the 1910s.

I mean, they're a hundred years ago.

It's almost like being a forensic detective sometimes.

I mean, you're just, you're looking for clues anywhere you can find them.

(upbeat music) - [John] Bill's initial intent was to tell the story about how the engines were used.

(guitar strum) - [Bob] We found one particular engine that was in the bottom of a farm pond.

(upbeat music) So these things don't come into the museum all the time, all nice and shiny.

- [John] We have a shop, and they actually do the restoration of the engines.

We do complete engine display, we build our own displays in-house.

- [Jason] We have some great employees that are very artistic.

They would take my dad's vision and turn it into reality.

(upbeat music) And his whole idea behind that was, try to make it look like a work of art, so that even someone that isn't interested in anything automotive would look at that and say, "That's beautiful."

- Part of the thing that makes this museum unique is the breadth of offering.

(upbeat dance music) (upbeat dance music) - We have 120 cars in the collection and we have everything from midgets, to sprint cars, IndyCars, custom cars.

(upbeat dance music) We have 600 engines in the collection.

(upbeat dance music) - [Narrator] But the collection doesn't just showcase cars and engines.

- [Bob] We have about 500 lunchboxes on display, (upbeat dance music) about 800 pedal cars.

(upbeat dance music) Just different little artifacts from different people's careers.

(upbeat dance music) There's three cars that represent the 1960s custom car craze.

We've got the George Barris Outlaw, there's the Red Baron that was built in 1968, and then the Boothill Express, which is actually our oldest artifact in the museum.

It's based on an 1850 Cunningham horse-drawn hearse.

- [John] It was actually originally used to carry James Younger's body to the Boothill when he was killed, part of the James Gang.

- [Bob] You look at those three cars and it's obvious that the 60s had all the best drugs.

I mean, you just can't think of stuff like that without some chemical stimulants of some kind.

(laughs) (upbeat music) Preston Tucker was a very interesting individual.

Tucker wanted something new and revolutionary, so he designed the Tucker Torpedo.

Only 51 Tuckers were ever built.

It was a very space-age looking car for the time.

It had the center headlight in it, very aerodynamic.

It was rear engine, which was very revolutionary for the day.

The center headlight actually turned with the front wheels.

You literally could see around corners at night.

(upbeat music) John MacKichan, who's the curator here at the museum, built a race car to run at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

- [John] I kinda got roped into going to the Salt Flats in 1986.

The mistake I made was buying a rule book, because you look through the rule book and you say, "Oh, that's a pretty soft record.

"You oughta be able to set that."

And so we pretty much designed the car on a napkin (upbeat music) at break time at work.

We raced it for 22 years, and I couldn't tell you how many times, I had to drive it three times.

(laughs) I know that the last record we set was 323 miles per hour.

Still has two records right now, and that's good.

That means it's not easy.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music) - [Jason] The museum, you know, it evolved over time.

(gentle upbeat music) We just didn't open the door and here it is, and it just keeps evolving, and to this day, it's still evolving.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Narrator] Bill and Joyce dedicated their entire lives to tell the stories of the automotive industry.

(gentle upbeat music) Now their four sons plan to carry on that legacy for years to come.

- [John] The importance of any kind of museum is to preserve the history.

We really are interested in being able to tell the next generations.

(gentle upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Steve] When I met my wife, I was into it by 12 years.

When my son was born, by 20 years, and so I'm now working on my 43rd book.

- [Julie] Our very first date, and he said, "There are two things you need to know about me."

"I like the color orange and I love the Nebraska Husker football team."

(upbeat music) - My books go through the whole season.

They start with the Spring Ball and the fall practice, and then the season, it goes through the bowl games and the recruiting, the pro draft.

So my books are one continuous story of Husker football for 42 years now.

(upbeat music) - [Julie] When he's working on his scrapbook, there is nothing else going on.

The dining room table's full, card table's full, kitchen counters are full, and we eat in the living room during scrapbook season.

(upbeat music) - [Steve] Probably my biggest challenge is the opponent's viewpoints.

I started in 1971 when Nebraska played Oklahoma.

There was so much media coverage on that.

Then I got to thinking that would be neat to get everybody's viewpoint.

So I've got over 500 viewpoints and I haven't missed one game in 40 years.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) How are you today, Gail?

- [Gail] Oh, I'm okay.

- [Steve] Oh good, my Sunday papers are in, so I got a couple opponents viewpoint today, too.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I came home from school one day and Steve was in tears, and I asked him what was wrong and he was just sobbing and he said, "It's Tom Osborne."

And I said, "What, did he die?"

And then Steve said, "No, worse."

"He resigned."

So, that's one of my favorite.

- [Steve] This is a special thank you for his 25 years of being coach.

And then this is a special thank you to his family for sharing Tom Osborne for 25 years.

(upbeat music) And this is the result, 700 pounds of Husker history.

(upbeat music) ("I Wanna Rock N Roll All Nite" by Kiss) - [Narrator] Sometimes when you love something, you just can't get enough of it.

♪ You show us everything you got ♪ For Dennis Michalski of York, that something is the hard driving rock band, Kiss.

♪ We'll drive you crazy.

♪ He saw the makeup-wearing fire-breathing rockers in concert for the first time when he was about 12 years old.

- Everybody's favorite song is Rock and Roll All Night.

♪ I, wanna rock and roll all night ♪ ♪ And party everyday ♪ After I had seen them on stage, they just totally blew my mind, changed my life.

I mean, forever.

It was just so amazing that I don't even know how to explain it.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] What he couldn't put into words, he put into a collection that now takes up much of his home.

- First thing that I collected was my ticket stub actually, 'cause I still have it.

I remember holding on to that, going into the show.

I kept that and cherished it forever and ever, and ever.

- [Narrator] That ticket stub got him in the door to the concert and opened the door to a lifetime of collecting Kiss memorabilia.

There's leather jackets and lunchboxes, even bags of confetti that fell to the floor following Kiss concerts.

- I'm looking at perfumes, neckties, a lot of clothing, any kind of clothing item that you can think of.

Guitar strings, they come out with their own pop now.

Guitar picks is a big one for me.

They even got a toothbrush.

- [Narrator] Many times he buys two of an item, one to keep sealed in the box it came in, and another to open and enjoy.

Then there's the guitars.

- This is my favorite guitar.

This is uh signed to Dennis from Ace Frehley right there.

And I got this at Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp, and it means a lot to me.

(Dennis drumming) - [Narrator] Yes, Dennis spent a week at Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp, playing drums and meeting some music legends, including Ace Frehley from Kiss.

(upbeat music) For a week in California, he lived like a rockstar.

Back in Nebraska though, his Kiss collection has brought him his own fame.

- People still called me the Kiss fan, you know, the Kiss guy.

I remember walking in Lincoln one time and this guy had just stopped dead cold and said, "You're the Kiss guy, aren't you?"

And pointed out to his son, you know, "This is the guy that everybody talks about."

And the little boy's eyes just lit up, like he's seeing a rockstar or something, you know.

And I was just, after I walked away, I realized it made me feel good 'cause that was pretty neat.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The same kind of feeling he gets watching Kiss take the stage.

(upbeat music) If you could rate the fans of this rock band, Dennis would be off the charts.

- There's there's a lot of crazies out there, but I think I'm up there, but I'm not a Kiss freak.

I'm a Kiss fan.

- [Narrato] A fan who's living his own real life rock and roll fantasy.

One Kiss collectible at a time.

- I'd like to have my own Kiss museum someday, it's where I can sit down and just open things up to people and share.

It's so cool to watch somebody come over here and open up the curtain to come down here and just go, "Oh wow, that's amazing."

(crowd applauding) STEFANIE: She saved all the little things that nobody else wanted.

I think that that might be the crux of the whole thing.

If nobody else wanted it, she would take it and make it into something.

NARRATOR: Narrow pathways lead to beautiful stained-glass creations, statuettes and other items that recall an artistry of the past.

The ceiling of the room is lined with the telephone booth doors from the old 1st National Bank building in Omaha.

And now, with Stefanie's mother approaching 90 years of age and inopoor health... Stefanie is trying to sort through the piles of things.

It's an all too common problem facing many baby boomers these days.

STEFANIE: Any piece that you would say let's get rid of, she'd go 'no' - I'm going to use that.

I honestly can't say that there's anything that she coveted one over the other.

She loved it all.

NARRATOR: Conservators say one of the first steps in tackling any collection is tracking what you have and why it's worth saving... JULIE: These are the children of people from a different time period, they don't know what to do with the silver, they don't really want the China, if the parents haven't passed on to the children the reason why these things are important, the children and grandchildren don't really want them, they don't really care about them as much.

NARRATOR: Even with failing eyesight, Lucile can sometimes still help her daughter and granddaughter as they investigate the story behind an object.

But finding the provenance or history of each item is a challenging process.

JULIE: Mrs. Schaaf took the first step.

She actually collected these items from buildings in Omaha that were being destroyed.

Buildings that had beautiful interiors, carved woodwork, stained-glass windows, she saved these things when they were being destroyed and thrown away but how much more valuable would they be had she written down exactly where they came from and when she got them.

Stefanie: Um this is a book that we found.

It's a personal antique collectable, record book of my mother's, that we found in a bunch of her records.

Julie: The personal record of blank.

Stefanie: Of blank.

(laugh) We assume it's hers.

Julie: Oh my gosh.

Stefanie: But it's a great book 'cause it gives you... Julie: ...A place to put the photo and so she thought about this.

(laugh) Don't you wish she had put something in it?

Stefanie: Certainly do.

Julie: Oh, the whole thing is empty.

(Laughter) ♪ MUSIC ♪ JULIE: If you really care about preserving your things, you need to intellectually manage them, which means you need to write down what they are, why they're important, why you collected them, who's going to get them when you pass away, you also need to physically control their lives by providing them with the sound environment, stable storage materials and a safe place to be.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Watch more Nebraska stories on our website, Facebook and YouTube.

(upbeat music) Nebraska Stories is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation.

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