Hammer Museum (Haines, Alaska) facts for kids
The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska, United States, is a very special place! It's the first museum anywhere in the world that is all about hammers. Imagine a whole museum filled with just hammers!
This unique museum opened its doors in 2002. It has an amazing collection of over 1,400 hammers and other related tools. These tools come from many different times in history, from ancient days to the time of early settlers, and even up to the modern industrial age. The museum also has about 8,000 more items stored away, waiting to be shown!
What the Museum Does
The main goal of the Hammer Museum is to learn about, show, and protect the history of hammers. They want to teach everyone about how hammers have been used throughout time. It's all about educating the public on these important tools.
How the Museum Started
The person who started the museum is named Dave Pahl. He moved to Alaska in 1973 from Cleveland, Ohio, because he wanted to live a self-sufficient life. He became a blacksmith, which is someone who works with metal, and started collecting hand tools as a hobby.
Over the years, his collection grew bigger and bigger. He found hammers by buying them, receiving them as gifts, and even going on "hammer hunting" trips! In 2001, Dave and his wife Carol bought an old building in Haines, which was over 100 years old. They planned to turn it into a museum. While digging for the building's foundation, Dave even found a special ceremonial pick that belonged to a Tlingit warrior, which made him even more sure about his plan!
The museum officially opened in 2002. Most of the hammers you see there are from Dave Pahl's own collection, which he has loaned to the museum permanently. But the museum also keeps adding new and interesting hammers to its collection all the time.
Amazing Hammer Collections
The Hammer Museum has many different areas, or galleries, where you can see hammers used for all sorts of jobs. You can find hammers used for:
- Blacksmithing (working with metal)
- Early trades (jobs from long ago)
- Industry (big factories and businesses)
- Working with specific materials like metal, stone, and wood
The collection includes traditional hammers used in many different fields, such as:
- Mining (digging for minerals)
- Ranching (working on farms)
- Carpentry (building with wood)
- The railroad industry (building train tracks)
- Auto-body repair (fixing cars)
But that's not all! There are also hammers that were used by bankers, people going to nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s, lawyers (called barristers), shoemakers (cobblers), and even musicians! You can also see hammers used in the medical field by doctors and dentists.
Some of the most exciting items in the collection include:
- An ancient Egyptian stone ball called a dolerite ball
- Battle heads from Ancient Rome
- The Tlingit warrior's pick that Dave Pahl found
- Over fifty different hammer patents (official documents for new inventions)
- Cool sculptures both inside and outside the museum!
