The Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum

Sat, 10 May 2008 11:57:00 +0000

Our building is fully handicapped accessible, air conditioned, and has ample free parking onsite. And the building itself is a sight to behold!

And then there are the toys - you'll see thousands of toys of all types and ages, from dolls and dollhouses, to toy soldiers, trucks and cars, trains planes and ships, Western toys, space toys, cartoon characters, ride-on toys, and just about anything else you can think of to bring back those great memories of childhood!

Our exhibits of toys and trains from every generation are sure to bring a smile to your face! Our scale model of downtown Wheeling and our Ohio Valley room are great for the heritage minded tourists out there, and our operating train layouts are fun for everyone!

We are the IDEAL destination for your school group church or youth group, the PERFECT activity for your Family Reunion, and the ULTIMATE stop for the whole family, either when coming to Wheeling, West Virginia, or when just passing through the area on Interstate 70!

The Dream Realized

In the middle 1970's, Allan Robert Miller and his son, Allan Raymond, began actively collecting toy trains. Their interests began with Lionel Trains, mostly of the postwar and then-current MPC varieties. By the early 1980's the collection had expanded to include both prewar trains and the trains manufactured by Louis Marx and Company.

Their interests continued to grow to include toys, both by Marx and by others, classic 1950's playsets, dolls and dollhouses, and other items, and the two began seriously considering founding a museum to house their many finds. As the collection grew, so did their knowledge of trains and toys.

The younger Miller has done work on numerous collector's price guides for Greenberg Publishing and Kalmbach Publishing, and has written articles for several nationally circulated collector's magazines. Both father and son have set up informational exhibits and spoken to local groups on the topics of toys and trains.

It became apparent that the dream would some day become a reality, so the search for an appropriate building began. Many sites were considered before they settled on the property at 144 Kruger Street in the Elm Grove section of Wheeling, West Virginia. The building, a Victorian era school built in 1906, provides an excellent historical location to house the many classic toys from their collections, as well as from other collections from around the world. The museum has ample parking, and is easily reached by anyone traveling in or through the Wheeling area.

On August 27, 1998, the facility was dedicated and opened for the first time for local media. Doors opened to the general public on September 1, 1998.

History

In the summer of 1905 a bond issue was authorized by which means money was procured to erect a new building to house the public school for the Elm Grove area. The old site and building were sold at auction, and a new site on the right bank of Big Wheeling Creek was purchased.

This site was originally part of the Moses Shepherd estate. This ground was once an Indian burial ground, and that diagonally across from the southeast corner once stood an old Indian mound. In the spring of 1906 work was begun on the new building and on March 4, 1907, the teachers and pupils said goodbye to the old school house and took up their work in the new.

The Board of Education at the time consisted of U.M.Hervey (President), W.L.Duncan (Secretary), G.W.Guy, and J.F.Shirk. The architect for the structure was Charles D. McCarty of Wheeling. The contractors were Elliot & Winchell of Clarksburg, West Virginia. The cornerstone was laid on June 30, 1906 by the Knights of the Pythias, Mystic Lodge No. 24. The cornerstone can be found on the right corner of the building as viewed from Kruger Street.

This building was an up-to-date structure for its time, a two-story brick, with improved basement, one of the finest in the state. It contained twelve recitation rooms, a room for the Board of Education, a principal's office and library, and two manual training rooms. It originally housed not only grades one through eight, but also a two-year high school program.

The building remained a public school until 1991, when the last classes of Ohio County Schools were held there. The building was then used by West Liberty State College for the 1994-95 school year, before being closed in the mid nineties. On March 18,1997 the building was sold at auction to the Eibel Corporation, which developed the building into the current home of the Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum. The Museum opened on September 1, 1998. Another Eibel Corporation business, Elizabeth's Upholstery, also currently occupies space on the ground floor of the building.

The floors in the classrooms are made of Georgia yellow pine, and the woodwork throughout the building are red pine. The "tin ceilings" are believed to have been made by Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, and are original; they are actually pressed steel and not tin! In the belfry of the school is still found the original school bell, weighing nearly 1 ton and still operational.

A few interesting side notes about the property are that the Linden tree in the front of the building is the oldest of its type in the state of West Virginia, and that the building contains embedded in its lower left corner a medallion indicating that it was the benchmark for the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey in 1957.

admin

Ohio Valley Yellow Pages Ohio Valley Businesses

The Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum