- Will you consider this?

You've heard of planes, trains, and automobiles.

Well, add bikes, clocks, and LEGOs.

There's a place for everyone to visit so very close to home.

Join me to check it all out.

(upbeat music) What do you do with 30,000 square feet of building?

You fill all of the buildings with wonderful things, past and present, and that's exactly what's going on at the Wheels O' Time Museum.

Joining me are Marcia Johnson, who is the site manager there, and two wonderful volunteers, we've got Ron Alexander and Dave Griffin.

Welcome.

- Welcome.

Thank you for having us.

- Bring me up to date, you have, well first of all, site manager, you moved back 22 years ago and now you're the site manager of this wonderful place.

- I know, wonderful things happen.

I became involved about 15 years ago.

Several of my friends were active in the museum, had been founders of it, and invited me to come up and I started receptioning, and pretty soon I was a site manager.

- You were hooked.

You were hooked - And I was hooked.

It's a wonderful, wonderful place.

- Well, you know, a lot of people have passed by it.

It's right there on North Knoxville, or State Route 40.

- [Marcia] Yes.

- And it's, I mean, you see these big trains, you see things right on the road, and you, sometimes you wonder, well, what's going on there?

And tell me about it.

- Well, people do, and I've had many more people than I like to think about tell me, "I've driven by numerous times and never stopped", and stop the next time.

From the road, you really can't tell, but we do have six buildings.

We are full of marvelous things.

We have a display of about 50 classic cars of various kinds, which include the Peoria Glide and two of the Peoria Duryea.

We have tractors, and fire engines, and Grandma's Kitchen, a tool room.

We have partnered with the Peoria Historical Society, and we have a wonderful display in our newest building about the history of the Peoria distilling and brewing industries, and a good friend of WTVP's, Bernie Drake, has done a wonderful video about that.

There are six buildings now.

One of them was just completed and ready to go last year, and we have partnered with the Ford Club and they have a display every year with a lot of memorabilia from the early beginnings of the Ford Motor Company and Henry Ford, and they generously have a display of three wonderful cars that they bring in differently every month.

- Wow!

From Ford in-- - No, not from Ford.

- Okay.

- They're from local people, but they are unusual, nicely restored cars.

- [Christine] How fun.

- We have the Silver Streak come every year, and I know you've done some work with the folks, with the John Butte and the Silver Streak and that's always so much fun when we have them.

- Well, let's talk to these gentlemen-- - Okay.

- 'Cause we're women, and we could just go on forever, but-- - We could.

- Since they're nice enough to come out here.

(laughs) - Thank you.

- The former Vonachen's Pullman cars that used to be the restaurant right there at Junction City, you two have worked tirelessly to restore those, is that correct?

- There have been many, many volunteers work on those things for, we tried to estimate how many hours, it was thousands of hours and man hours, and many volunteers that have done various aspects of working on those train cars, and it's been a challenge, you know, they were in slight disrepair when we got the cars, and everything from leaking roofs to leaking windows and broken windows, things like that, so.

And Dave's familiar with doing what the painting needs would have been for the cars.

- And how is that?

- It's coming along, yeah.

Like he mentioned about hours that we've put in, Marcia estimated some time ago, it's just a rough estimate, for the two cars, 16,000 man hours have been spent so far restoring them.

- [Christine] And that began when?

- 2010, the cars were moved to the museum site from Vonachen.

So they had sat at Vonachen's for two to three years after Vonachen's went belly up.

- [Christine] Right.

- So they had deteriorated noticeably in those two to three years.

And then we, Pete Vonachen, when they were closing their restaurant, contacted the Wheels O' Time Museum and said, "Hey, you can take these cars for free as long as you pay to move them to the Wheels O' Time museum", so that's how it happened.

- I kinda remember that story, 'cause the-- - We moved 'em out there.

- Yeah, we had Balagna House movers out of Farmington move the cars from Junction City out to the museum.

- So what's been the most challenging part of trying to restore it?

I mean, you've got pictures obviously of what old Pullman cars looked like in their glory days, and you're doing the same, making 'em-- - Well, those cars were built in the early 1890s, actually, you know, so they're well over 100 years old, and they were actually wooden structures when they were originally built, you know, the outside, they were wooden cars like they built years ago.

- Right.

- And at some point they modernized 'em, put a sheet metal skin over 'em so the sparks from the locomotive wouldn't set the train cars on fire-- - [Christine] That was a very smart thing to do, yeah, okay.

(all laugh) - So anyhow, when you first look at the cars, you think it's all the sheet metal, it's all riveted together, whatever.

But if you look real close, those rivets, what appear to be rivets are actually wood screws.

That's how they held the sheet metal to the wooden structure on 'em.

They got so many layers of paint on 'em you can't hardly see the slide in the screw head, but yeah, a few of 'em are noticeable and I always point that out to folks, you know, what looks, what appears to be rivets are actually big, long, large wood screws holding everything together.

And the wood has deteriorated and some of those screws are starting to pop out, which presents a challenge, one of the challenges, you know.

- So do you peel that off, and then-- - No, no.

We just work with it as best we can, try to stabilize it.

- Use Gorilla Glue?

(laughs) - Yep, in some cases, yep.

But we've had various people that have helped us with supplies, some of the sheet metal had to be repaired, replaced, and some of our local people have generously provided us with some sheet metal from time to time, or woods, part of the wood structures and things like that.

- So, how did you get involved?

How did you get involved in volunteering there?

- Well, I guess I've got Marcia to thank for that, as far as... (Marcia laughs) She and I go to the same church.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And she came to me once and asked me if I'd be interested in coming out and helping with the volunteer work, and I said I was kind of busy right now.

I've got a, I had another volunteer job at Irving School.

I was a third grade math tutor, if you can believe that.

- [Christine] Wow.

- And I lost my job because the school closed and all the students moved to Lincoln School, and they didn't really think they had a need for a math tutor.

So I finally came back to Marcia and said, okay, I can do it now.

- I'm ready.

(both laugh) - And you asked earlier about challenges, I think I could answer that question in one word, and that's windows.

In the two cars, there are windows, both inside and out, on each window opening.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And one of the cars actually has four windows, in and out, and an opening.

It has two above and two below.

- [Christine] All right.

- So if you add it all together, I think it's 154 windows in those two cars, and we had to, some cases, totally rebuild the windows, they were unusable.

The frames were rotted out.

- Were any the same size?

Were any two the same size?

- Some were the same size, some not, yeah.

That's another problem, you know, when you're taking the windows out of the slot to work on them, we had to number them all to make sure that we put the window back in the same slot it was in, because it might not fit in a different slot.

- Correct, right.

- But we remade some windows entirely, and others we had to scrape and reglaze and paint.

And we probably got a paint that wasn't the best in the world, we found out later, because within two years the paint was peeling on the outside, so we had to start all over again and completely redo everything.

It was a real challenge.

- Wow, wow.

Then, Ron.

- I got started in at the museum, I knew Gary Bragg, right.

Gary was one of the original founders of the museum, and I had worked with Gary at Caterpillar in Mossville, so I knew Gary, and-- - [Christine] And our cameraman too, right?

- Yeah, yeah, Mr. Stedman worked out there too, yeah.

I crossed paths with Don, so.

- So, Gary just got you involved, and he said, "Hey, come look"?

- Yeah, involved, you know.

Yep, uh-huh, that's right.

And there's so many things that are fascinating, you know.

I guess if I'd been born years ago, I'd have been a tinkerer, just, you know, odds and ends, just whatever.

We've got everything in the museum from fire trucks, to airplanes, to trains, and just anything to work on.

- Right.

- And a few light bulbs that get changed from one time to time.

- That does need to be done.

Have you had to switch over to LED and everything, too?

- We are-- - Have you found that that makes a big difference?

- Yeah, as we're available we're switching things over to LED.

- So you're not afraid of heights, you climb ladders to change light bulbs?

- We do, yep.

Mhm.

(Christine laughs) - But Marcia doesn't.

- We ended up on the ceiling on the outside of the two cars on a long ladder.

- Yeah, there's a-- - Oh.

- I'm too old to do that anymore, but he can still do it.

- There's a lot of work to do, though.

- Always, there always is, yes.

So, a big new display is everything made out of LEGOs.

Tell me about that.

- Well, this is a remarkable display.

We were very generously gifted the LEGO display.

A gentleman died, and he had loved LEGOs and collected many, many, many of them.

And the sons were very generous and donated them to the museum.

And our curator, Cory Tibbits, put together this wonderful new display.

I just wanna call it a LEGO mountain.

He took all of the houses, all of the different items that they had.

There are things from circuses, and carnivals, and who would know that LEGOs had trains that actually work.

And he put together what I'm calling a LEGO mountain, and the trains run in tunnels under this mountain of houses and garages and various things.

There are at least four trains running, and it is an amazing display.

And we know that LEGOs have kind of taken the world by storm in the last few years, and you really must come out to see that, it's-- - Well, that's a way to incorporate a whole different generation, because, you know, I appreciate looking at old things and saying, well, you know what?

That tool works a whole lot better than some of the stuff that I bought today.

But, to see kids enjoy that, that would be a way to get them in the door, and then who knows what's gonna spark in their brains to take a look deeper into how we got to where we are.

- One of our displays we have is called Grandma's Kitchen.

- Right.

- But the youngsters going through nowadays, you know, it's like their great-great grandma's kitchen, because-- - Correct.

- You know, the youngsters nowadays, their grandma's got a microwave and whatever, you know, and our grandma's kitchen doesn't have a microwave.

- [Christine] No, no, they had to put a fire in the oven.

- It has a vacuum cleaner that you, to make the vacuum, you pull a rod, and so-- - Oh, okay, yeah.

- And I would've stuck with a broom, but.

(all laugh) But, other things, we do have a lot of interactive displays.

It is not just history, it's fun, and it's a fun museum to go through.

- Well, I haven't been for a long time, so tell me about the interactive ones.

'Cause I remember going, seeing all the cars and everything, and I think I saw Grandma's Kitchen and I went, oh, I still use that, and that was my grandma's, and my mom's, and-- - Well, there are buttons to push, and there's a kinetic machine which is constant energy.

And that, this little ball rolls all around all of these different places, kind of a Rube Goldberg thing.

- Okay.

- There is a circus wagon with a circus parade going around playing the circus music.

We have river and rails, a locomotive that the wheels go and the noise goes to make the sound.

And as you go through the museum, there are all kinds of different things that you can do.

You can get into a Model A car out in the Ford building and pretend to drive.

Our school tours, we get the youngsters in a fire truck and let them blow the siren.

There's just all kinds of things on that order.

There's also an electric car that is a 1974, looks kind of like a golf cart with a roof.

- [Christine] Okay.

(Marcia and Christine laugh) - And it's charming.

- It wasn't a big seller, then.

- It was not, I think Fiat made them, and I think there are 500.

And you can get in that car, and people are loving that.

You can climb up on one of the Caterpillar tractors that are in the newest building, and they're great photo ops.

We have some pedal cars and a couple of pedal tractors that the little ones can get in and drive around.

And this museum really has something for everybody.

For the real, real serious history person, we have a lot.

And for the folks who are kind of in the middle, there are lots of fun things, too-- - Of interest.

- And then for the young folks we try to keep things so that they enjoy learning history in a really fun way.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- The locomotive that we've had for a long time, huge old steam locomotive-- - Right out there in the front.

- Right out there in front.

- [Christine] Mhm.

- And you may go up in the steam locomotive, you can, there is noise, buttons you can push to make noise, and it's just so much fun.

The caboose, which is also in the train row, there are five train cars now, counting the two new ones that we opened this year.

And we've put in a little LEGO train and track on one of the storage benches, and the children can play with that.

I have seen children carried out very unhappy because they didn't wanna leave their LEGO train.

(laughs) - [Christine] Which is great, yeah - It is.

Another thing that we're finding very interesting, the Peoria Historical Society has partnered with us and they have put in this really, really nice comprehensive display about the history of the brewing and distilling industries in Peoria.

- Right, right.

- And we have a great video from Bernie Drake in that display.

In our new building, we also have a small airplane that's hanging from the ceiling, and that airplane was used for reconnaissance in both Europe and Japan-- - In World War II?

- In World War II.

- Interesting.

- And we have a video that was condensed from a larger one that was a, I believe a PBS video, showing how this reconnaissance actually worked.

It's fascinating.

I never knew anything about this, and it's just wonderful.

- Now I have come, and I don't know anything about it either.

- It is just wonderful.

- You know, you touched on something that I wanna expand on a little bit, and that's something that kind of sets this museum apart from other museums, I think, and that's the children's tours that we offer.

There'll be groups from schools all around Peoria area that come, and we have tour guides all set up so each one of us would have maybe six children to guide through the museum, and usually they'll have a parent or something else with us, too.

- [Christine] Correct.

- Take them all around the displays, and they just get the biggest kick out of that.

And they have a great time, and one time I said to myself, I must have done something right today because we have a little area outside where the kids gather before they leave and after they'd been through the museum, and I went over to talk to 'em and see how they were doing, and this one little boy that was in my group came up to me and gave me a big hug, and I thought, I must have done something right.

- Yeah, he treasured that time with you.

- That was special.

- That really was, yeah.

So what does it cost for people to go see now?

Because, I mean, you have a lot of upkeep, but not very many on the staff, mostly volunteers, right?

- Mostly volunteers.

We are blessed with volunteers.

Our admissions are really quite reasonable.

Adults are $10, seniors are nine, and children from age three through grade school are $4.

We also have several different packages available so that you can return as many times as you wish during the summer.

The family membership is only $50, and you can come back as many times as you want to.

During the season, Ron is our blacksmith and he's doing blacksmithing demonstrations every other Saturday.

- [Christine] But you're not shoeing any horses or anything.

- No, no, that's the farriers.

- Okay, oh, okay.

See, what do I know?

All right.

But you are pounding on that-- - Yeah, we've got a forge out there, and we fire it up, you know.

Looking to put in a permanent little installation so we can do it more often, but for right now, it's just occasional.

- And what brought this on?

I mean, this is just something that you wanted to do?

- Oh, I'm a hobby, no, I'm a hobby smith.

- [Christine] Okay.

Well, that's what you said you wanted, yeah, you'd be a tinkerer.

- So this is an opportunity for me to set the forge up, you know and-- - [Christine] Okay, there you go.

- [Marcia] And our guests love it.

- I bet.

- They really do.

We have a lot of other activities going on during the season.

You can check our website, which is ww.wheelsotime.org, to find out when the different things are happening.

And there are many interesting kind of things.

In the fall, the second Sunday in October, we have our fall festival, and bring in a lot of different folks and their exhibits, and they can see how many different things are done.

And that's always a big day, that's always fun.

- The season, your season is May to October, through the end of October?

- Yes.

Through the end of October.

We still do not have heat in a couple of our buildings, and so it would be a little nippy, but it's a very exciting season, and May 1st is when we opened.

We are open Wednesdays through Sunday every week, and noon to five.

We have a space that we can use for birthday parties if someone is interested in having their children's birthday party there.

We can accommodate that, and we could accommodate adult birthday parties, too.

- So, how many can you accommodate?

'Cause some people might have, you know-- - Right, well, we start out with 20, but we can work out, I would say 50, 60 is probably about the tops of what we can do, but-- - You also have a home there, the Letourneau Home?

- Oh gosh, we do, and I almost forgot to tell you about the Letourneau Home, 'cause that's really one of my favorites.

- So it's not much bigger than the space we're sitting here?

- 24 by 24.

- It's 24 by 24, and it's remarkably easy to live in.

RG Letourneau owned the factory and made heavy equipment that Komatsu now owns.

And in 1937, after the Depression, he realized there was a terrible housing shortage, and he made things with steel and he could make houses.

And these are formed four by eight panels that are double walled, they have vermiculite insulation, and the whole house, walls, ceiling, floor, and interior walls are made of these steel panels.

And they had, so two or three different sizes that they made, but anybody could order anything they wanted that would fit the dimensions of these panels and bigger.

And we have had a lot of help getting this restored, and needed a lot of welding.

(chuckles) - Were you in on that?

- Oh no, no.

We have some volunteer welders.

- Okay.

- We have welders, and we built a crawl space and called upon our friends, Balagna Movers, to move the house, and decorated it in the 1938 style, and it's very cozy.

People just love that house, they really enjoy going through it.

- Now, is there a bathroom?

- Yeah, oh yeah.

- I do need to come see that.

- This is 1938.

- Has a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms.

- Mhm.

- Two bedrooms?

- Two bedrooms, and we have a children's bedroom.

We have it furnished with some, a little cowboy outfit and some toys, and a toy box, and some cap guns, and it's really, really fun.

And we learned that there was a statue of RG Letourneau at Glen Oak Park, and we talked with the folks there and they very generously allowed it to be moved out to the Wheels O' Time, and so he is there-- - Right by the house.

- Overlooking the house.

- That's awesome.

- And it's just-- - Easy to hang pictures, too, by the way, all you need is a magnet.

(all laugh) - Yeah.

- You can decorate with just all magnets-- - Yeah, and we have.

- All right, so we just have a couple minutes left.

- Okay.

- Bucket list, what else do you want, what do you need, other than volunteers, to make Wheels O' Time even better, or just even more enjoyable?

- Oh, well, we need a lot of guests to come out and see it.

- Okay, there's a start.

- Because that makes us so happy, we love to show it to people, and we love people's reactions when they actually see it.

Anyone who has an item of interest that would fit in with the museum, we love to accept donations.

We've made wonderful, wonderful exhibits with the donations that we have.

And, oh gosh, I don't know, we just keep growing.

We need to expand the walls, because there are so many wonderful things to see, and-- - Add another building, just throw another one up.

- Just throw it up, it'd hardly cost anything.

(Marcia and Christine laugh) - So Ron, so you wanna have your own fire pit?

- Yep, we're gonna put a little blacksmith shop in one corner of the farm, we have a building called the farm building.

And so we're gonna try to make a permanent little blacksmith shop back in there, so-- - All right.

- It can be going more than just twice a month, we can, you know.

- [Christine] That's your bucket list.

- Well, yeah, yep kinda.

- Okay.

- Among other things.

- [Christine] And then Dave, how about you?

- Well, Marcia's already mentioned that my next project is probably going to be the, it's a Milwaukee Road Combo Car.

It's a combination seating and railway express agency car, and it's been there forever and is in need of finishing up, so I think that'll be my next project.

- Never ending story.

- Yeah, there is also more restoration that needs to be done to our farm building, along with adding the blacksmith shop, but we'll work on it.

- Okay.

Well, thanks so much for being here, and we hope we get a lot of people out.

I guess I gotta bring my grandkids, now, too, or maybe I'll just do it first and then I'll come through with them so I make sure that I get the highlights for them.

- Well, I will tell you, if you have the grandchildren, you will get through it a lot quicker than (laughs) when you might do it on your own, because they are so anxious to get to the train, which is one of the last stops on the tour.

- Okay.

- So, just keep that in mind.

So it might not be a bad idea to come first.

- I'll do that.

(laughs) Thank you for that, that bit of brilliance because you've experienced it.

Well again, thank you Marcia, and Ron, and Dave for joining me, and here's to the Wheels O' Time Museum.

Hope you learned a lot about it, too, and get out there for a visit.

Stay safe and healthy, and hold happiness.

(upbeat music)