Have you ever been driving somewhere and see sign about a place of interest that’s intriguing to you? Have you wanted to stop and visit the place but you weren’t able to because of other commitments or scheduling conflicts? Has there ever been a time when you could actually take the short detour and visit that site?
Well, Bobby, my husband, and I recently were able to do just such a thing. We were traveling back from our visit in Indiana where Bobby performed magic. I was driving, and we were coming up to Richmond, Indiana. Bobby says to me, “the Model T Ford museum is just seven miles out of our way. Do you want to go see it?” Seeing a car museum isn’t exactly on my bucket list, but my first thought was it would be something my dad would like. So, in honor of my dad’s love for cars, we took the detour.
The museum is within the city limits of Richmond, in Historic Depot District. On this Sunday afternoon it was pretty quiet. In fact, when we pulled into the parking lot, there was just one car in it and it was a Model T! The guy was getting out of his car as we were getting out of ours. Bobby stopped to talk to him, but I was just interested in getting out of the hot weather and into the building. After paying the $5 per person admission fee, I began meandering around the museum. Bobby was busy taking pictures.
The first thing that struck me was that the cars where in different colors. I had heard the quote from Henry Ford that you could “get any color as long as it was black.” But here were red and green and blue and white cars in addition to the expected black. Well, it turns out, that for the first years of production of the Model T, you could get the car in the color of the year. So one year it might be red, but the next year green. As they say, you learn something new every day!
But my education didn’t stop there. I learned that a Model T could be purchased without all the accessories — like headlights, windshield, top, bumpers, horn and speedometer — or the reason the Model T museum is in Richmond, Indiana. It is because one of the previous directors of the Model T Ford Club of America wanted to move back home to Indiana. So he brought the organization’s headquarters with him.
The museum actually is in two buildings. The club owns — or displays — around 40 cars. It was around 2007 when the first building was purchased. At that time, there was no room for staging the cars. In 2012 or 2013 the second building was purchased. This allowed more space between vehicles and a better way to stage or display the cars so that they could be enjoyed.
The cars that are owned by private individuals are loaned to the museum so that they can be seen and appreciated by visitors, much like an art enthusiast would loan a collection of paintings to an art museum.
All of the cars run, but only two are used as company cars or Ambassadors for the museum. The company cars can be seen driving around Richmond running errands or transporting dignitaries in parades.
In the first building we saw different years of the Model T from the first year of production 1909 on up. In addition to the Model T Touring and there was a Model T food truck, a Model T snow sled, which was fashioned together for mail delivery during the winter, a Model T firetruck and an airplane. The airplane is in the museum because it has a Model T Ford engine, which was another thing we learned. The Model T was considered the universal car. It could be converted into an assortment of other vehicles as needed. Things like a cart puller in a factory or a tractor on the farm.
In the second building, we saw some Model T’s that were converted tractors. The museum guide told us that for a time Henry Ford decided to branch out into farming equipment, but his investors were sure the motorized tractor would never replace the horse. He decided to create a separate Ford entity for the tractors. It was called Fordson and apparently if you wanted to sell Model T cars, you had to also sell Fordson tractors.
The second building also houses what would have been considered a “showroom” from back in the day. It wasn’t like it is today when you can go in to a car dealer, pick out the car and drive it home the same day. You had to place the order based on the demo in the showroom and wait several weeks before you could get your car. Oh, but think of the anticipation!
I admit, when I thought of Model T cars, I just thought of the black, boring, only one kind of car. But I was wrong. There was so much variety to the types of cars. There were the two seat hot rod, the Runabout, the Town Car, school buses, and ambulances. The Town Car was kind of like a limousine, in which the driver and the backseat passengers were separated by a glass. There was a device in which the passenger could talk to the driver through a tube that went from the backseat to the front, right by the driver’s ear.
While we were in the second building, we found that we had a connection to two cars that were part of the museum’s collection. One was with the company car. This car was given to the museum for being driven around town. The donor is from Medina, Ohio, which is the town where my dad grew up. The other was a confectioner’s food truck that served hot dogs, popcorn and peanuts. The truck was donated by a couple, Charles and Tammy Bruan, from Hillsboro, Ohio. Hillsboro is a town that Bobby and I lived in for several years after college.
What was an unplanned detour on our trip home, turned into a pleasant experience that I could share with you. Of course, I had to tell my dad about it. He’s even considering taking the trip to see it himself. It might be worth a trip for you, too. Who knows what interesting tidbits you may pick up there!
