Wheels Through Time Museum

[Bullett]

Several people told us that we should visit the Wheels Through Time Museum when we were in Maggie Valley. I visited the museum, sans Jan, Saturday morning around 10ish.

 

There were quite a few bikes in the parking lot, but I found a nice place to park under the trees. A guy who turned out to be Mr. Dale Walksler, was riding an old Harley-Davidson around the parking lot. As I carefully parked my rented RT, he rode up, introduced himself, and asked me if I needed any assistance.

 

When I walked up to pay my admission, Mr. Walksler graciously let me in for free. "This is my kind of place," I thought to my self as I walked into the exhibit space.

 

The first thing I saw was this:

 

 

I took a pic for my Father-In-Law, a Corvette man.

 

I couldn't believe the sheer quantity of old machines, advertising and other automotive and motorcycle related stuff! I was amazed that people rode these machines fast, some of them, little more than a motorized bicycle, at speeds exceeding 100 mph.

 

 

A gas tank/seat: the original Iron Butt.

 

 

They had this old poster/flyer about a post WW2 ride close to where I live:

 

 

These bikes were ridden on a board track, a velodrome, like bicycles beginning in the early 1900's.

 

 

This was one of Steve McQueen's bikes. I really liked the Art Deco look of the tank:

 

 

This bike is a one-off with an interesting history:

 

 

 

This bike, the Flesher Flyer,

 

 

has a unique "all in one" foot control/floorboard.

 

 

An inline 4

 

 

another Corvette

 

 

Up on the second floor they had a bunch of flat track racers, lots of throttle control, sliding rear ends, and no brakes

 

 

And one of Evel Kneivel's jump bikes

 

 

and this

 

 

in the parking lot.

 

All in all, the museum was pretty cool. It was like a giant garage of dreams and memories. A great experience!

 

 

 

[Bud]

Dale owned Dale's HD in Mt. Vernon, Illinois for many, many years. When he sold the business, he tried to get some incentives from state and local governmental units to build the museum in Mt. Vernon. It all had been in a couple of buildings behind the old dealership.

 

Didn't get any help here but was given help to move the museum to the east coast. A great loss for the midwest as far as motorcycle history is concerned.

 

Thanks for the post and the pics.

[John Ranalletta]

...and, it's moving again to AZ. From WTT website:

For the second year in a row, the Wheels Through Time Museum is projecting record numbers of visitors to the 38,000 square foot Maggie Valley Motorcycle Mecca for the 2008 Summer season. The museum, which houses the premier collection of vintage and antique American motorcycles and automobiles, has chosen Northern Arizona as its new destination and looks forward to opening its doors in mid-2009.

[Nice n Easy Rider]

Sharon,

 

Thanks for the pics. That picture of the Henderson brought back some memories. My grandfather rode one and I remember all the stories about him racing through Bridgeport CT in the 1920s on it, crossing the city limits line, parking the bike and standing there grinning at the LEOs who couldn't do anything about it (not that I'm condoning this behavior, mind you). When I got my first bike at 16 he would come out in the garage while I was working on it and just walk around it several times with looks of "wish I could do that again".