Reynolds-Alberta Museum

Reynolds-Alberta Museum
Location Wetaskiwin, Alberta Canada.
Type provincial transportation, aviation, agricultural museum
Website machinemuseum.net

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum, in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada, one of 18 provincially owned and operated historic sites and museums, honours the "spirit of the machine". It traces the mechanisation of Alberta's transportation, aviation, agricultural, and industrial past from the 1890s to the 1970s, as cars and trucks replaced horse-drawn buggies and wagons, huge factories replaced the village blacksmith shop, and animal and human-powered farm implements were replaced by mechanized equipment. The stories told by each exhibit reveal how the daily lives of Albertans were affected during this period of rapid change.

The museum has one of the world's best historical collections of transportation and industrial machinery, including

The holdings continue to grow through the generous contributions of hundreds of donors. Tax receipts are available for donations.

The main gallery takes the visitor along a "highway through time", beginning with a horse-drawn carriage of the late 19th century and featuring four stations, whose themes are a 1911 factory, a 1920s grain elevator, a 1930s service station, and a 1950s drive-in. The centre of the gallery has artifacts and displays that showcase the agricultural theme through the four seasons of the year.

Visitors can tour the main gallery on their own or as part of a guided tour, take rides in vintage cars and aircraft, visit an internationally acclaimed state of the art restoration and conservation facility, participate in hands-on programs, watch vintage agricultural machinery being used on 28 hectares of actual crops, or browse the award-winning reference collection or the gift shop. The Museum also features event rooms for group meetings, and is one of only two museums in Canada with fly-in access.

Featured exhibits include:

The Museum also serves as home to Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame, a national organization paying tribute to the men, women and organizations who pioneered and advanced aviation in Canada.

Contents

Location

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum is located between Edmonton and Red Deer in Alberta, Canada, 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of Edmonton. It is located off Highway 2 or 2A, 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west of the city of Wetaskiwin on Highway 13, or east from Highway 2, near the Wetaskiwin airport.

History

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum opened in 1992 as a project of Alberta Community Development and Alberta Infrastructure. It is named after Stan Reynolds, a Wetaskiwin businessman and world-renowned collector, who donated a core collection of 1,500 artifacts between 1982 and 1986, and, along with many other individuals, continues to donate portions of his collection. Stan had owned a local car dealership and always advertised that he would take anything in trade - therefore the large and varied collection of vehicles, airplanes and farm implements.

The transportation collection

Highlights of the transportation collection include:

The aviation collection

Highlights of the aviation collection are:

The complete aviation collection includes:

Airplanes

Of the 90 aircraft listed below, just under one-tenth are currently available for public viewing, with the remainder stored in the Collection Storage Building.

Helicopter

The agricultural collection

Highlights of the agricultural collection are:

The museum's complete agricultural collection includes:

Baler, hay

Combine

Combine, Self Propelled

Cultivator, Field

Cultivator, Row Crop

Digger, Potato

Disk, Oneway

Dockage Tester

Harrow Disk

Harvesting

Hay Sweep

Haying

Hay-Loader

Machine threshing

Miscellaneous

Motorized, tractor

Mower

Parts

Picker, Fruit

Pickler, Grain

Plow, Disk

Plow, Moldboard

Plow, Breaking

Plow, Gang

Seeding

Spreader

Swather

Tractor

Tractor, Garden

Tractor, Farm

Weeder

Well, Water

Wheel

Reference centre

This Museum's award-winning reference centre offers visitors the largest publicly accessible collection of motor vehicle, aviation, agricultural and industrial trade publication literature in Canada. Topics covered include automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, airplanes, tractors, plows, threshing machines, steam traction engines, fire-fighting equipment, road construction machinery, and more. The collection consists of books, magazines and newsletters, journals, newspapers, service manuals, parts manuals, owners' manuals, price lists, advertisement and subject files, research reports, and audio-visual materials, with more than 3,000 books, 50 current subscriptions and 25,000 pieces of trade literature dating from the mid-19th century to the present. Experienced staff provide a wide variety of reference services, answering thousands of questions each year for restoration enthusiasts, museum and library professionals, historians, collectors, hobbyists, and just the curious from all over the world. Orientation tours are provided to individuals and special interest groups. Photocopies are available for a nominal fee. (Note: This is a non-lending reference centre. All materials must be consulted on site.)

Restoration shop and conservation laboratory

Artifact restoration, maintenance, and conservation are done in the Museum's Restoration Shop and Conservation Laboratory.

The staff share their knowledge with serious car enthusiasts interested in learning museum-quality restoration techniques through a popular vehicle restoration workshop series, "Learn From the Experts", held each January and February. Workshops include the vehicle restoration process; metal finish repair on automobile bodies; surface preparation, paints and finishes; and detailing techniques.

The professional conservator in the Conservation Lab repairs and stabilizes the original materials and finishes of rare and unique artifacts, attempting to stop further deterioration. This services requires a combination of patient detective work and chemical wizardry.

Affiliations

The Museum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.

References

External links

World Heritage Sites
National parks
Provincial parks
Urban parks
Museums and historic sites
Alberta
Aero Space Museum of Calgary · Alberta Aviation Museum · Bomber Command Museum of Canada · Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame · Cold Lake Air Force Museum · Reynolds-Alberta Museum
British Columbia
Manitoba
Air Force Heritage Museum and Air Park · Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum · Manitoba Military Aviation Museum · Western Canada Aviation Museum
Nova Scotia
Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum  · Greenwood Military Aviation Museum  · Shearwater Aviation Museum
Newfoundland & Labrador
Ontario
Quebec
Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre · Musée de la Défense aérienne · Vintage Wings of Canada
Saskatchewan
See also