A big museum in a little town

The American Heritage Museum, in Stow, Mass.

The Worcester Business Journal reports  that the Collings Foundation has been buildingits 65,000-square-foot American Heritage Museum, in tiny, rich, exurban Stow, Mass. (The neighbors in the residential neighborhood are not particularly pleased.)

The museum will have exhibits from America’s wars. These are said to include 12 warplanes; the largest U.S. private collection of military vehicles – 115 of them -- a life-size replica of a World War I trench and special effects that “re-create sights, sounds, and smells of war (i.e. ‘trench stench’)’’; a theater; classrooms; interactive exhibits, and  such other artifacts as a Revolutionary War cannon, a 1917 American tank and a Scud-B missile from Desert Storm. Yikes! But no nuclear bombs yet.

It’s been increasingly said that there are too many museums competing for too many visitors. Perhaps this one will prosper, especially if it can partner with enough news media, documentary filmmakers and school, although the associated crowds won’t please the residents of mostly tranquil Stow. People enjoy entertainments based on wars, if not wanting to actually be in one.

There’s an International Museum of World War II in Natick, Mass., by the way.

To read the Worcester Business Journal article, please hit this link.