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PITTSBURG —
The Rollin’ Nostalgia Car Club will have the first a series of 12 monthly exhibits at the new Miners’ Hall Museum at the site of the Franklin Community Center and Heritage Museum.
The museum, which will have its grand opening at 4 p.m. today, will host a Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibit titled “The Way We Worked” May 11-23, and the 12 earlier exhibits will also explore some aspect of work in southeast Kansas.
“It’s kind of amazing what the automobile has done for us, all the jobs it’s created,” said Jack Alvested, Rollin’ Nostalgia club treasurer.
Items in the club’s exhibit touch on some of those jobs, from photos of area automotive repair shops to a service station gas pump.
“We’ve drawn on what all of our members and some of our friends have,” Alvested said.
The photos include Sharp’s Body Shop and Malle’s, both of which are still in business.
The photos taken at Sharp’s by then owner Percy Coles include before and after pictures of damaged cars that had been repaired at the shop.
“They did some good work,” Alvested said.
According to an explanation by Bill Sharp, mechanics first disassembled the car to determine what pieces of the wood inner structure needed to be replaced. Broken pieces would be taken to a local cabinet shop to be reproduced.
“General Motors cars were famous, or infamous, for having a lot of wood in them,” Alvested said.
Another eye-catching item is a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle chassis.
“GM used it for big company auto shows in New York and Detroit to allow people to see what the insides of cars looked like,” Alvested said. “They even cut away the hub cap so you can see the brakes.
He said that GM gave the chassis to Pittsburg State University, which later gave it to Pittsburg High School.
“The school had an auction and we bought it,” Alvested said. It was in some disrepair, so we took it apart and restored virtually all of it. When we plug it in you can see the valves go up and down and the transmission go around. It’s a pretty unique piece.”
There are also various service station items. In addition to the gas pump is a bulk oil pump.
“Back in those days, most people put bulk oil into their cars,” Alvested said. “We’ve also got some of the bottles they used to put the bulk oil in the car.”
The Rollin’ Nostalgia Car Club will have the first a series of 12 monthly exhibits at the new Miners’ Hall Museum at the site of the Franklin Community Center and Heritage Museum.
The museum, which will have its grand opening at 4 p.m. today, will host a Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibit titled “The Way We Worked” May 11-23, and the 12 earlier exhibits will also explore some aspect of work in southeast Kansas.
“It’s kind of amazing what the automobile has done for us, all the jobs it’s created,” said Jack Alvested, Rollin’ Nostalgia club treasurer.
Items in the club’s exhibit touch on some of those jobs, from photos of area automotive repair shops to a service station gas pump.
“We’ve drawn on what all of our members and some of our friends have,” Alvested said.
The photos include Sharp’s Body Shop and Malle’s, both of which are still in business.
The photos taken at Sharp’s by then owner Percy Coles include before and after pictures of damaged cars that had been repaired at the shop.
“They did some good work,” Alvested said.
According to an explanation by Bill Sharp, mechanics first disassembled the car to determine what pieces of the wood inner structure needed to be replaced. Broken pieces would be taken to a local cabinet shop to be reproduced.
“General Motors cars were famous, or infamous, for having a lot of wood in them,” Alvested said.
Another eye-catching item is a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle chassis.
“GM used it for big company auto shows in New York and Detroit to allow people to see what the insides of cars looked like,” Alvested said. “They even cut away the hub cap so you can see the brakes.
He said that GM gave the chassis to Pittsburg State University, which later gave it to Pittsburg High School.
“The school had an auction and we bought it,” Alvested said. It was in some disrepair, so we took it apart and restored virtually all of it. When we plug it in you can see the valves go up and down and the transmission go around. It’s a pretty unique piece.”
There are also various service station items. In addition to the gas pump is a bulk oil pump.
“Back in those days, most people put bulk oil into their cars,” Alvested said. “We’ve also got some of the bottles they used to put the bulk oil in the car.”
He pointed out some small metal caps that he said were hub caps used on wood spoke wheels.
“They would have been used in the teens or 1920s,” Alvested said. “Those wheels were little better than wagon wheels.”
Rollin’ Nostalgia was formed in 1991, but it was not the first car club in the area.
“There was a club called the Gear Grinders in Frontenac from 1958 to 1963,” Alvested said. “Pittsburg’s answer to the Gear Grinders was the Coal Burners Car Club, which was active around the same time. Then the Coal Burners were restarted in 1980 and disbanded in 1987.”
The exhibit includes jackets from both clubs.
Other items include a display of license plates from 1913 to 2003. Many of the older ones had the number 4 on them.
“They used to use numbers for county designations, and Crawford County was 4 because it was the fourth largest county in the state because of the mining,” Alvested said. “It was bigger than Johnson County.”
In conjunction with the exhibit, Rollin’ Nostalgia will have a car show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on May 20. Some original Model T and Model A cars are expected.
“We were just tickled pink to be asked to take part in this, and to be the first exhibit and be part of the grand opening is great,” Alvested said. “We’re very excited about this.”
