20 Sep 2022 - Sallows Military Museum and Last Day at Alliance NE

 20 Sep 2022

Today we made preparations to depart Alliance NE in the morning.  One last venue we wanted to visit was the Sallows Military Museum.  This museum is just north of the Central Park we visited last night to see the colored fountain.  It features artifacts from the Alliance Army Air Base and Box Butte County Nebraska.  They have items from the Revolutionary war through Iraq and Afghanistan and from all military branches plus information from the old Alliance Army Air Base.  

The museum got it's start in late 2002 with military artifacts originally housed in the Knight Museum here in town.  The building was originally the bath house for the Alliance Swimming Pool in the 1930’s and also used to be the Parks Department.  The museum opened its doors May 1, 2004.  Unfortunately in 2005 someone decided to set fire to the museum and caused approximate $250,000 in damage.  Luckily the fire department got it under control quickly preserving the remaining items.  They showed us a charred slipper resulting from the fire.

There space is quite confined and they told us about their plans to expand the museum, but they currently lack the funds to do so.  They said the basement is packed full of items they have no space to display, and hundreds of military firearms that have to be stored off-site for the same reason.  We hope they are successful if raising the funds to expand as there are a lot of great artifacts here and a great desire to appropriately display them.  

As we entered the museum, right inside the door was a familiar item from our Iowa National Guard Headquarters at Camp Dodge!  

The photograph shows a bird's-eye view of 18,000 soldiers at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa, positioned in the shape of the Statue of Liberty.  It was believed to have been taken in July 1918 by Arthur Mole and John Thomas, photographers that traveled the country taking photos of soldiers.  It was shot from an 80 foot high tower and was intended to help promote the sale of war bonds but was never used as such.  Mike Vogt, curator at the Gold Star Museum at Camp Dodge, says the photo was taken not long before the soldiers were shipped out to France for World War I. The Gold Star Military Museum has three original prints of the picture.

One of the main reasons for visiting this museum was to learn more about the old Alliance Army Air Base which was in operation during World War II.  They had tons of info about it, so much so that we would have to change our travel plans if we were to dig that deep!  We did look through some of the printed material and some of the photos relating to the air base.  

What the air base looked like in it's hey day!

An Army Air Corps pilot 

The main gate

One of the three ring binders we studied appeared to be a fairly complete history of the base.  One of the contributors was Ben Sallows who was the editor of the Times-Herald newspaper at that time.  We can only assume the museum was named after him.  We asked the museum staff and they did not know.

Other pictures from inside the museum:

A stove used to heat one of the barracks buildings

AS mentioned before, they have an extensive firearms collection and only a small portion are being displayed.  

Interesting, a target practice kite with an image of an aircraft on there!

I took many more pictures, but you get the idea.  Outside they have a M-60 tank on display and that is the only piece of military hardware there.  

While in town we refueled the truck in preparation for our trip tomorrow.  We also got graceries at the local Safeway.

Back at the campground I intend to empty/flush the sewer tanks, grease the suspension, wash the coach, stow the barbecue grill and get ready to depart.  Tomorrow we drive about 261 miles SE to Kearney NE.  We will be there for four nights, then just one more stop after that before we get home.

Next report from Kearney RV Park!