ALL ABOARD A sign welcomes visitors as they enter the new Railroad History exhibit at the Fulton County Museum
By: Jacob Kessler
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jacob@thevillagereporter.com
The Fulton County Museum proudly held a grand opening for its newest exhibit “All Aboard!” this past week. The grand opening was held from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 25th.
The new exhibit will allow guests to journey back in time to explore the history of trains and rails from our region.
The exhibit features an interactive display with trains and depot artifacts, model trains, and hands-on activities that focus on the people who worked on and around the railroad.
Additionally, fun and interactive items are present for children of different ages. A storybook based on the little engine that could was even included on a wall for children to follow along with, and features pictures from the model train display at the Depot. A child scale switching tower was also built just for the exhibit.
A timeline is featured in the exhibit as well and was designed to show the history of the five main lines that came through Fulton County.
These were the New York Central, The Detroit, Toledo and Ironton, the Wabash, and two electric railways Toledo and Indiana and Toledo and Western.
Museum Director John Swearingen explained that visitors will even be able to speak with real people from the past. “Guests exploring the new train exhibit will be immersed in railroad history as they meet real people from our past including postmaster Bertha Emmons, Wabash crew member Grover Merillat, telegraph operator Esther Stone, signal operator Alva Shull, and many others,” said Swearingen.
The exhibit is in the Worthington Gallery at the museum and is there temporarily. All of what is featured, except for the model trains, was already owned and cared for by the museum.
These items include tools, signals, lanterns, telegraph machines, uniforms, and more. Director Swearingen expressed his hope and desire for people to come to visit the museum to see these artifacts and all the hard work that was put into the exhibit by the volunteers.
“We are very relieved to be done with everything on time. It is amazing how many volunteer hours these folks have put in.”
“People who like railroad history will not be disappointed, and I am sure they will learn something because I know I did.”
“We started working on this about a year ago, but all the building took place in November. It has been pretty intense and is the most complicated special exhibit we’ve made since opening in 2018.”
The exhibit will be featured at the Museum until April of 2025 where it will then go to the Depot in downtown Wauseon.
The plan is to have it become a permanent exhibit once it arrives there. Special thanks were given to the Swanton Model Railroad Association for their help with the model trains.
