These are separate museums with a short sidewalk from one to the other. Tickets are purchased in the gift shop where the entrance to the pump museum is located. The exit of the pump museum goes directly to the sidewalk to the glider museum. If you want to go to the glider museum only you’ll have to walk through the grass around the pump museum to the entrance of the glider museum. Both museums are fairly small.
The Cornish pump was built to remove water from the iron mines in Iron Mountain. It’s largest reciprocating steam-driven engine ever built in the United States. Besides the huge pump the museum also has old photographs and mining equipment.
The glider museum tells the story of gliders used during WWII to silently land troops and supplies behind enemy lines. The gliders were towed by powered aircraft and released to land where there weren’t any airstrips. The Ford Motor Company in Kingsford was refit to build the gliders and the auto workers became plane builders.
Both of these museums are opened in the summer only and do not have any type of climate control. It was about 85 degrees outside the day that we visited and the pump museum, which is a metal building with no insulation, was over 100 degrees inside. The glider museum was somewhat cooler.
The concrete sidewalk leading to the gift shop is slightly sloped and the door opens outward making entering a bit difficult. The pump museum is accessible except for one section that is blocked by a ore car. The glider museum is accessible.
The parking lot is large enough for RVs. Long RVs will fit if parked parallel to the grass. Museums
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We enjoyed the Enchanted Highway very much and the little town at the end of the highway. I'm glad to see you are way ahead of all the fires out west. Travel safe.
ReplyDeleteYou guys seem to hit a lot of the same interesting, out of the way places that we do. :-)
ReplyDeleteWe heading back to PA for our yearly checkups. We did have one smoky day in Montana. It was blowing down from the north. There weren't any fires near where we were along the interstate.