Cole Land Transportation Museum

Cole Land Transportation Museum

Established	1989
Location	405 Perry Road Bangor, Maine, USA
Coordinates	44°47′06″N 68°48′12″W / 44.784982°N 68.803232°W
Type	Transportation
Website	www.colemuseum.org

The Cole Land Transportation Museum is a depository of land transportation vehicles used on dirt roads as well as state and interstate highways in the U.S. state of Maine. The museum was assembled over many years and opened to the public in 1989 by the industrialist and philanthropist Galen Cole in his home city of Bangor, Maine.^[1] It is located at 405 Perry Road and is open seasonally from May 1 to November 11.

Features of the museum

The museum contains the former Maine Central Railroad Company station house that was located in Enfield, Maine. The structure was the original building from which Cole's father, Albert J. "Allie" Cole (1893-1955),^[1] started a business in 1917 hauling the mail. There is also a Maine Central Railroad car and the front car of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad engine, which one may board and watch taped recordings about various museum exhibits. The Cole Museum houses a blacksmith shop, later a garage in East Lowell, Maine, where Allie Cole shod his horses. Many vehicles of the Cole Express Company are displayed to reflect the history of the company.^[2]

The Cole Museum features vintage automobiles, including a Stanley Steamer, a Ford Fairlane, a Ford Galaxie, a Buick, a Volkswagen, and the Oldsmobile 98, the official vehicle of Governor Joseph E. Brennan of Maine, who served from 1979 to 1987. There are early horse-drawn wagons and a prairie schooner, which is a scaled-down covered wagon. The museum also includes early motorcycles, mopeds, a few bicycles, snowplows and a snow roller, which are important for the Maine winters, farm tractors, a potato harvester, a horse-drawn hearse, a bus, trailers pulled by trucks, and delivery trucks of dairy products and ice. A special room includes a command car used in World War II, in which Galen Cole had been a young soldier.^[2] There are also outdoor military vehicle exhibits of both World War II and the Vietnam War.

The museum's recordings include the moving life story of Galen Cole's handicapped sister, Dorothy, who lived only to the age of forty. She was wheelchair-bound her whole life, but was an inspiration to all whom she met.^[3]

Gallery

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  Museum legacy statement (click to read)
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  Bangor and Aroostook Railroad emblem
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  Bangor and Aroostook Railroad engine
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  Maine Central Railroad Company car
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  Railroad section shack
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  Blacksmith shop
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  This circular saw cuts wood into segments to fit a wood-burning kitchen stove.
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  Prairie schooner, a basic covered wagon
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  Jigger wagon used by a Maine wholesaler to move merchandise
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  Getchell Brothers Ice Company transport wagon constructed in early 1900s and restored in 1965
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  Oshkosh snowplow
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  Roller for crushing smaller quantities of snow
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  Horse-drawn hearse, made at the Maine State Penitentiary in 1895, and used until the 1930s
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  Stanley Steamer
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  1928 "Lady B" Buick
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  1960 Ford Fairlane
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  1973 Volkswagen Beetle
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  1947 Italian-made moped
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  1946 Harley Davidson motorcycle
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  Dairy truck
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  1937 McCormick-Deering tractor
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  1941 John Deere Model H tractor
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  American Arrow 10-speed bicycle, usually made in Belgium or Germany
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  Soap box derby car sponsored in 1950 by the Bangor Daily News
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  World War II command car
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  Tank outside the museum
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  United States Army helicopter on the museum grounds
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  Covered bridge at the museum
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  The museum bell once used by a disbanded church is now available on patriotic occasions in Bangor.

References

1. "Galen Cole and the Cole Land Transportation Museum". Maine Seniors magazine. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
2. "Cole Vehicles Cover Maine from Dirt Roads to Super Highways, 1917-1997", museum brochure, Bangor, Maine
3. Cole Museum exhibit

External links

• Cole Land Transportation Museum - official site