Jay Johnson inherited from his mom a priceless home full of buried treasures that have consumed his later years and kept him where he says he’s been all his life: poor. She left him something else: a keen interest in history, and a desire to tell the family story by preserving her grandfather’s Old Prospect Inn. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Museums
‘I’m a saver,’ Alan Dragseth says. ‘I was building up an inventory of stuff but I never thought I’d start a museum.’ So he started a museum devoted to sugar beet farming. Read more →
Barry Levenson, a Massachusetts native, developed a love affair with mustard, and then a Wisconsin mustard museum, thanks to Bill Buckner’s inability to pick up a baseball in the 1986 World Series. Yes, it’s complicated. Read more →
The Museum of English Rural Life had a little fun on Twitter Monday, and followers rewarded the museum with a collective hug for some comic relief in a social media season where fun is really hard to find. Read more →
The Star Tribune reports the Twin City Model Railroad Museum has been told by landlords to pack up the trains and get out.
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It was no surprise, really, when the hucksters and street vendors showed up around the site of World Trade Center buildings while the holes in the ground were still smoking in 2001. We don’t expect much in the way of decency when there’s a quick buck to be made. But the new 9/11 Museum that opened last week is also cashing in on the collapse, to the consternation of family members of those killed. Read more →
Each speaker tried the impossible today: finding the rhetoric to describe meaning to the day two planes destroyed the icons of American financial power in the world. But words seemed to fail them all. Things don’t fail, however. The red bandanna Welles Crowther used to protect himself while he helped people out of the buildings and which was later used to identify his body. There are wallets and shoes that are now part of the museum. Read more →