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Nininger Moment #7
The Nininger Museum Part 2
 After the arrival of the Nininger's and their collection, came the
task of setting up display cases for their museum, fixing up the rented
building for the public, general cleaning up and painting to give a
more professional look to the museum. The museum was without electrical
power and was open as long as there was enough sun-light to illuminate
the displays. Often its opening was when visitors came and were wanting
to see the great collection under glass or was closed early on days
of a lack of visitors. They cooked on a gas butane stove and used gas
lanterns to see during the evenings. The inside walls were painted white
to provide as much light as long as the days would permit. The main
floor space was twenty by forty feet.
The tower was used for storage space and their bedroom was sixteen by
eighteen feet with bookcases place to separate the kitchen. A small
window opened west at the foot of the bed. Public rest rooms had been
installed in former storage space and opened out into the exterior of
the building.
About half of the tourist that would turn into the museum would read
the admission sign of .25 cents for adults and .15 cents for children,
would turn and leave without checking the magnificent display. The first
day they had a total of sixty customers who toured their display and
seemed well pleased. Admissions steadily increased the first year with
as many as a hundred on occasion. The Nininger's sold literature and
specimens to help supplement their income to customers and by mail order.
Many of the visiting public included strange stories of meteorites that
Nininger would recognize as a mistake. A sense of humor was required
to deal with these stories and correct the error in such a way that
the customer was not offended. Inside of the museum a customer could
heft in their hands a meteorite from outer space. The center of the
museum was some large Canyon Diablos from meteor crater the center piece
for the museum. Often school groups would come out on tours as well
as visiting former college students that Harvey had taught. In all some
33,000 paid admissions were recorded on the books the first twelve months
with visitors from every state, forty three foreign countries, fifteen
colleges and high schools, a few groups of scientists as well as other
miscellaneous groups.
In all the museum operated on route 66 for three years before the interstate
drastically cut the museums business down to half which made it less
feasible to maintain and support the Nininger's. At its peak the museum
housed some 5,000 meteorites from 526 different finds or falls. It had
displays on various stages of weathering of meteorites as well as shapes
and sizes. A greater variety of specimens were present than at any other
institution larger or small. The museum had been made not only to support
the Nininger's but to provided a much needed education on meteorites
that was not present in even the better colleges and higher education
facilities of the day.
Source: Find A Falling Star By H.H. Nininger
The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of
the items written in the moments might be old out dated material and
the reader is advised to keep this in mind.
Note: (off topic) On the way back from Tucson Show and while listening
to talk radio from a local Texas station, I heard of a similar problem
that a young mom had had with a moving firm found on the internet. They
wouldn't move her entire contents as quoted so she left half of them
out east (many items that she needed) and were still trying to charge
her 9 times the price originally quoted for what was shipped. Seems
that at least some things don't change over time and this reminded me
of the Nininger's move. No doubt there are more reputable movers out
there than this one.
--AL Mitterling
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