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Forney Museum of Transportation
The Forney Transportation Museum
is a unique transport museum in Denver, Colorado, that was started
by J. D. Forney, the founder of Forney Industries, Inc. Fort
Collins. This wonderful museum contains a marvelous collection of
500 displays, which its early years centered mainly on antique
automobiles, then expanding into all areas of transportation; and
getting its slogan, "Anything on Wheels" soon after. Some of the
very unusual types of transportation include a Forney locomotive
that was designed by a second cousin named Matthias N. Forney, an
amphicar, a Big Boy locomotive and Amelia Earhart's "Gold Bug"
Kissel. It started out as a private collection and has grown into
one of the most magnificent transportation collections in the world.
Forney became interested in classic and antique cars after his
children and wife gave him a 1921 Kissel yellow tourister, the exact
same model as the car that he used to court his wife, Rae. His
company produced numerous products, like the Fornair airplane,
battery chargers, central vac system and portable vacuum cleaner and
auto generators; but the most well known are the various models of
electric welders and welding supplies. He soon began taking in older
cars and carriages as trade-ins on his welder sales and in 1961, the
museum was incorporated in Fort Collins. It became a non-profit in
1964. The Big Boy Union Pacific #4005 that is one of his favorite
and is one of the last examples of the world's biggest steam
engines, a 4-8-8-4 type. It had been involved in a crash in 1953,
and was one of 25 built and now only 8 are still housed in museums.
The Forney locomotive 0-4-4T is another, it was designed by Matthias
and patented, with a tank-type of engine that had to built by a few
manufacturers. The one housed here was built by Porter in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1897 and had been used mainly for
elevated railways like the New York Elevated Railway, the Chicago
Elevated and the Brooklyn Elevated. Initially called "little girls",
there were over 500 were still in service around the turn of the
century, carrying both passengers and freight. The steam powered
locomotives on the elevated would only last a few years before being
replaced by the modern electric engines. The Forneys were then sold
to buyers around the world for short haul freights and passengers,
plantations, lumber and mining runs. The Forney locomotives were
used in the Denver region for both passengers and freight runs, with
the Denver, Lakewood and Golden Railway and the Denver Circle
Railroad had become the most well known. The museum is spread across
70,000 square feet and there is an equal amount of space available
for future expansion. One of the finest automobiles in the
museum is the 1923 Kissel Speedster, Model 45, "Goldbug", a 6
cylinder, 41 horsepower beauty that was owned by Amelia Earhart. Her
parents had divorced while the family lived in California, and her
mother and sister, Muriel would be moving to Massachusetts so that
Muriel could start school at Harvard and the family start a new life
in New England. Muriel had gone on ahead by train, to start summer
classes and look for a place for the family to live. Amelia and her
mother had stayed in Los Angeles to tie up loose ends, and then
would use the canary yellow "kizzle" as Amelia called it, to travel
to Boston. She didn't care for train travel and felt like the car
excursion would be exciting and wonderful at the time. Her dream was
of flying across country, but considered the car trip to be second;
as she had learned to fly before driving. Although she started
calling the car "kizzle", she later changed her name to the "Yellow
Peril". It would become a very exciting trip across Canada,
traveling 7000 miles altogether, which was quite a feat at the time,
since roads were not paved all over, and mechanics few and far
between. It was quite the novelty, both for her and the people that
stopped them along the way to ask questions about the bright yellow
car and the wild woman driving it and her mother across the
continent. The car's color hadn't been to outstanding in Los
Angeles, but when they arrived in Boston, it seemed to be very
"outspoken" according the local standards. Other featured exhibits
included a porche 928, a 1934 Pierce Arrow, the 1967 amphicar, 1927
Rolls Royce, 1912 Renault, 1916 Detroit Electric, antique clothing
and wax figures, 1811 Overland Stagecoach, and 1923 Hispano Suiza.
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