DUNLAP, Ill. — The Wheels O’Time Museum in Dunlap started as a place where some Peoria area auto lovers could keep their car collections, and just grew from there.
Now, it is trains, planes and automobiles, and a lot more. Over the years, more and more items were housed at museum. One of the more recent acquisitions is this Glide automobile, made in Peoria. It’s one of 15 Glides known to exist in the world.
It doesn’t run now, but it will.
“The motor currently isn’t running, but we’re going to make it run,” Marcia Johnson of the Wheels O’Time Museum said.
The volunteers at the museum know about putting things together. In a back building, there’s an Ahrens-Fox fire engine, looking bright and shiny and ready to roll. It had been ignored for decades before the museum folks got their hands on it and restored it.
Not all the exhibits are in the buildings; outside is a steam locomotive. Old number 886 was the last steam train to bring passengers into Peoria on the Rock Island line.
On another part of the grounds is a “Carefree Home.” It’s “carefree” because it was made of steel. Manufactured in Peoria in the 1930’s as a solution to a housing shortage, this little home has two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and kitchen, all decked out in 1930’s style. Like any home, except the pictures on the walls are held up by magnets.
The Wheels O’Time Museum charges $7 for adults and is open Wednesdays through Sundays, noon-5 p.m.
There are already five buildings on the museum ground, and now because of a recent donation and recent restoration, the museum is hoping to put up another exhibition center: a permanent home for a display of a fire engine and a small plane.
