Hammer Museum (Haines, Alaska) facts for kids
Welcome to The Hammer Museum! It's a super cool place in Haines, Alaska, U.S.. Guess what? It's the very first museum in the whole world just for hammers!
This amazing museum started in 2002. It became a non-profit group in 2004. Inside, you'll find over 1,400 hammers and other related tools. These tools come from all sorts of times. They range from ancient days to colonial times and even the modern industrial era. The museum also has 8,000 more items stored away!
What the Museum Does
The Hammer Museum has an important job. Its main goal is to find out about, show, and keep safe the history of hammers. It also teaches people how hammers have been used throughout time. This helps everyone learn about these important tools.
How the Museum Started
The museum's founder is a person named Dave Pahl. He moved to Alaska from Cleveland, Ohio in 1973. He wanted to learn how to live off the land and be self-sufficient. Dave became a blacksmith, someone who works with metal. He started collecting hand tools without even planning to.
His collection grew bigger over many years. He bought some tools, others were given to him, and he even went on "hammer hunting" trips! In 2001, Dave and his wife Carol bought an old building in Haines. It was over 100 years old. They planned to turn it into a museum.
While digging for the building's foundation, Dave found something special. It was a ceremonial Tlingit warrior's pick! This discovery made him even more sure about his museum idea. The museum opened its doors in 2002. By 2004, it became a non-profit organization. Most of the hammers you see there are from Dave Pahl's own collection. But the museum also keeps adding new and exciting hammers all the time!
Amazing Hammer Collections
The Hammer Museum has many different areas, called galleries. Each gallery shows hammers used for specific jobs. You can see hammers for blacksmithing and early trades. There are also hammers for big industries. Some hammers are made for working with special materials like metal, stone, or wood.
The collection includes many traditional hammers. These were used in mining, ranching, and carpentry. You can also see hammers from the railroad industry. There are even hammers for fixing cars!
But that's not all! The museum has hammers used by bankers. There are hammers for people who went to nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s. You might even find hammers used by lawyers, shoemakers, and musicians. Doctors and dentists also used special hammers!
Some really cool items in the collection include:
- An ancient Egyptian dolerite ball.
- Roman battle heads.
- The Tlingit warrior's pick that Dave found.
- Over fifty hammer patents on display.
- Both indoor and outdoor sculptures made with hammers.
