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Bringing the past to life

Many things are happening at Tracy’s Wheel’s Across

the Prairie Museum, including live blacksmithing

TRACY

The Wheels Across the Prairie Museum in Tracy preserves pieces of area history, but that’s definitely not all it does. When Tracy area residents and museum volunteers come together, they can also make a little of that history come to life. It’s a phenomenon visitors will get to see this weekend, during Tracy’s Box Car Days.

Over the summer, the Wheels Museum has been working on a few different building projects, which will be ready for visitors during the festival.

“It’s been a busy summer,” said museum board vice president Jon Wendorff. A new building that will hold both exhibits and maintenance space was built, and the museum’s blacksmith shop got a facelift. A lot of the work on the blacksmith shop was done by museum volunteer Ron Boje.

“The blacksmith shop was in pretty rough shape there,” Boje said. Now, the 1873 building has a fresh coat of paint, new wooden doors built by Boje, and other updates. Boje will even be putting some of the museum’s century-old smithing tools to use during Box Car Days. They still work fine, said Billie Jo Lau – Boje tested them out.

“He just started making things,” said Lau, the museum board treasurer. Museum board members thought it would be fun to share with visitors.

“I’ll be using one of the old forges,” Boje said. “It was just going to be on Monday, but then we thought, let’s do it Saturday through Monday.”

Boje has experience hammering out metal tools like knife blades at his own shop at home, but now museum visitors will get a chance to see how the process works.

“I’m pretty excited,” Boje said. He even plans to dress in period clothing for the demonstrations. “I just hope it ain’t too hot, though.”

Being able to show some “living history” is a special opportunity for the Wheels museum, Wendorff said. “It’s something unique.”

“I think it’s wonderful. There’s a lot of history here in Minnesota,” Boje said. The museum helps preserve it.

The blacksmith shop has had a varied history, Lau and Wendorff said. It was built as the Springdale Township schoolhouse and later served as a town hall and then a storage building before coming to the museum, Lau said.

After the work Boje put into it, museum supporters surprised him by naming the building “Boje’s Blacksmith Shop.”

The renovation at the blacksmith shop wasn’t the largest project at the museum this summer, however. That honor went to the new, barn-red building constructed right next door to the shop this summer. The new building will have space for some of the museum’s current exhibits, as well as storage and a shop area.

There’s been some other work done around the museum this summer, too, volunteers said. The log cabin originally built by John H. Low in the 1860s was re-chinked – another job Boje tackled. To replace some of the old chinking between the cabin logs, he said, “I used old mortar. That sticks good on the wood.”

Being able to preserve some of the area’s history is a labor of love for Wheels museum volunteers.

“It’s amazing, the passion you get from people who volunteer,” Lau said.

“I just love being around that old stuff. History always interested me,” Boje said. He’s looking forward to sharing part of it with the blacksmith demonstration. “To me, it’s fun to see that old stuff come back to life.”

Box Car Days is usually an important event for Wheels Across the Prairie, supporters said.

“The whole weekend is considered a fundraiser weekend,” for the museum, Wendorff said.

Visitors can enjoy a pork chop on a stick or a root beer float as part of the museum’s annual fundraiser on Saturday, and an antique tractor show will run the whole weekend.

Wendorff said fundraiser proceeds will help pay for repairs and upkeep on the 1895 one-room schoolhouse at the museum.

A big addition

Construction on the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum’s 15th building started in July, although the project has been in the planning stages for three years, Wendorff said. This week, the finishing touches and electric wiring were being put in.

Wendorff said the new building will have room for some of the museum’s current exhibits.

“It will free up space in our tractor shed,” Wendorff said. Exhibits moving to the new building will also include displays on area medicine and dentistry, Tracy businesses and Garvin city history. Additional space in the new building will be used for storage, and for a maintenance shop for museum artifacts.

The storage and shop space will be a big help for museum volunteers, he said. “Right now, we don’t have any place to work on things.

Exhibits in the building will open up next spring, but visitors can check it out during the museum’s Box Car Days fundraiser. Pork chops on a stick and root beer floats will be served inside the new building from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

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