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Board trains sights on museum Public fundraising campaign By George
Schwarz Representatives of The Railroad Museum at the Historic Santa Fe Building announced a fundraising campaign to bring in a total of $2.5 million to finish the museum Ñ the next step in the development of the Potter County building.
The announcement came at an April 17 gathering on the 11,000-square-foot second floor of the Potter County-Santa Fe Building where the museum will be housed. The quiet initial phase of fundraising is done and the museum board now seeks support in the public phase of the campaign to raise another $1.4 million, said Walter Wolfram, president of the museum board. The museum will involve all the railroads that were involved in putting Amarillo together and sustaining it. "We act like the railroads are a past matter," Wolfram said. "The only thing past about it is how they worked then as opposed to how they are now. They are as important right now to our economy in Amarillo as they ever were." More materiŽl comes through Amarillo now than at any previous time in its history, he added. When the county got the $3 million grant to renovate the building, it was necessary to tie it back to transportation, which was easy to do because the building was the headquarters of the Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway, County Judge Arthur Ware said. According to The Handbook of Texas, "The Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway Company was one of the two major operating subsidiaries of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company (Santa Fe) in Texas." The P&SF merged into the Santa Fe in the 1960s. Wolfram praised the museum board. Each person whom he asked to serve on the seven-member board or help in any way has been positive and enthusiastic, he said "Everybody has run toward this project," Wolfram said. "No one has run away from the project." He explained that the railroad artifacts will be brought to the building and displayed in designs done by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. The plan is for mannequins to tell the stories of the people of the railroad Ñ brakeman, conductor, dispatcher, to name a few. A room has been set aside for a model train layout, but nothing else has yet been determined. Wolfram praised the people associated with the Madam Queen Ñ a different group Ñ but they and others are part of a railroad coalition. Sam Teague, who heads up the Railroad Artifact Preservation Society, said his group wants to support the museum and doesnÕt want to compete for funds. Teague explained that the Madam Queen project and the museum in the Santa Fe Building are part of a coalition of railroad groups preserving railroad history. Wolfram said Teague was one of "the true historians" of the railroad. "WeÕre now, 10 years later, moving into making this reality," Ware said, adding the CommissionersÕ Court has an agreement with the museum board to provide some funding to make sure the museum succeeds. Next Week: The Madam Queen. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: April 24, 2008
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