(KNSI) – There are new things to see at the Stearns History Museum.
The museum recently announced that it has two new exhibits on display: 33rd & Cooper, From Pan to Electrolux: 50 Acres of Opportunity, and Rising to the Crisis: A County Responds to a World in Turmoil.
The 33rd & Cooper exhibit details the 100-year history of a Stearns County manufacturing hub whose most recent tenant was Electrolux. Collections and exhibits curator Eric Cheever says the exhibit was built around one of the museum’s well-known artifacts, a 1919 car made by the Pan Motor Company.
“We’ve had an exhibit on Pan, the Pan Motor Company, Samuel Pandolfo for quite a few years, and we thought that property, the Pan Motor Company, has far more relevance to Stearns County or to St. Cloud than just the Pan Motor Company,” Cheever said, referencing the property that was once located at 33rd and Cooper Avenue before Cooper was moved.
“We talk about that piece of property, that manufacturing facility from its origins as farmland, Pandolfo bought it and built the Pan Motor Company … it became a couple of different motor parts manufactures, became Hilger [Company] — they made floor sanders and paint shakers and things like that,” Cheever said. “Then, during World War II, they became Char-Gale, where they made C-46 aircraft, which is kind of cool.”
Stearns History Museum
The other exhibit focuses on what life was like in Central Minnesota during the World War II era, and items on display include uniforms, other clothing, shelters made of scrap materials sometimes used by soldiers, workbenches and artifacts relating to area residents’ involvement in the Civilian Air Patrol.
“We made a video, too — a 20-minute video dealing with communication, as far as letter writing, and how people communicated during the war and how it differs from how people communicate today,” Cheever said.
Though they are two different exhibits, Cheever says there are plenty of crossovers, including the push for women in the workforce during World War II; Cheever says Char-Gale, located in St. Cloud during the war, was the first major manufacturer to hire a large number of female employees.
The exhibits, which will be on display for at least two years, will be refreshed from time to time with new artifacts and information, Cheever said.
“The subjects are so massive that we’re going to rotate new material in periodically,” he said. “So if you come in this weekend to see the exhibits and you come back in six months, there’ll be new objects and new stories to see.”
Though it is a staple of the 33rd & Cooper exhibit, Cheever notes that the 1919 Pan car, which is owned by the St. Cloud Antique Auto Club, is currently not on display at the museum. It’ll be on display during an upcoming car show.
“They have an annual car show at the Benton County Fairgrounds,” he says. “If you come tomorrow, you can’t see the Pan car. But, if you come on the 17th [of August], you’ll be able to see the red Pan car. There’s a couple of them, and we cycle them through.”
One idea that Cheever says he hopes visitors take away from the Rising to the Crisis exhibit, in particular, is experiencing history as a continuum, rather than fixed words on a page.
“So many people look at — especially younger people today, you know, because it was eighty years ago now — look at that time period through the lens of black-and-white photographs,” he said. “And our goal was to turn these black-and-white photographs into living, breathing human beings to kind of build a bridge between then and now so people can relate to the experience a bit more.
“We just have gone through, and are still going through, something of a crisis, no different than what people experienced back then and back during 1918,” Cheever continued.
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