Wings Over the Rockies Collections Storage Area Tour

[Noha307]

Today, while at the Air Force Historical Foundation Symposium, I had the opportunity to tour the collections storage area of the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. It was a extremely impressive collection and while it may appear a bit disorganized, the collections manager, Stewart Bailey, and his team of volunteers have done an amazing job processing the artifacts. The area is located on the second floor, along a hallway with a series of slit windows that rings the "narrows" in a U-shape. The pictures are presented in chronological order and, as a result, proceed in roughly this order

A setup for photographing objects in the processing room:

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The museum uses PastPerfect as a collections management system:

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More artifacts to be sorted through in the room behind the processing room:

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Looking to the right of the above picture:

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A rack of clothes awaiting processing:

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One of the volunteers helping to accession objects into the collections management system:

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Pretty self explanatory:

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The format of the location calls out the specific room and row of shelving, among other things:

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Artwork of an F-15 drawn on the wall of one of the storage rooms by students when Lowry Air Force Base was still active:

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More artwork – this one of an F-111. You can see the slit windows in the hallway at the bottom of the picture:

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A map showing the various rooms. A list of their purposes follows:

• 204 – Education?
• 205 – Unsorted?
• 208 – Various Storage
• 209 – Civil Air Patrol
• 210 – Processing
• 211 – Processing
• 212 – Model Storage
• 213 – Model Storage
• 218 – Various Storage?
• 219 – Research Library
• 220 – Research Library
• 221 – Manual Library
• 224 – Periodical Library?
• 225 – ?
• 226 – ?
• 227 – Textile Storage
• 228 – Avionics Storage

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Radioactivity is a concern:

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Acid free and Bankers boxes:

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Materials from an exhibit about Elrey Borge Jeppesen that had been at the Denver International Airport until very recently:

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More books with a model of the Martin X-24B at left:

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The cart in the middle has duplicate or excess books awaiting sale:

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I believe this is more of Mr. Hickey's collection. (see below):

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A shelf of books from Lawrence J. Hickey's library. Hickey, of International Historical Research Associates passed away in 2021 and the museum acquired the half of his collection related to Luftwaffe research. The half related to the Japanese went to Justin Taylan of the website Pacific Wrecks:

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An overview of the room:

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Our very generous tour guide, collections manager Stewart Bailey, posing with more books from Mr. Hickey's library:

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A custom painted door with an F-4 in a room used for education:

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In the same room as the door was this F-16 profile artwork:

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Another F-15 drawing:

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One more of four F-16s in flight for good measure:

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The model storage room:

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More model storage. The door to the room in the picture above is just out of frame to the left:

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The printer on the filing cabinets is almost an artifact in and of itself:

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Stu's desk:

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Both flat and regular file cabinets galore. Both flat and regular file cabinets galore! One of the flat files on this tour, possibly one of the two gray ones in the background, contained blueprints for the buildings at Lowry:

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One half of the museum's research library. The cart at center right contains more books to be sold:

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The other half. I can't remember the exact total, but I believe they estimated they had approximately 10,000 books. An F-4E drawing peeks out from behind the bookshelves in the upper left:

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Various views of an A-10. This drawing is visible in the shot two pictures above:

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In case you somehow forgot where you were, the sign on the door of the research library serves as a reminder:

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A wishlist of improved shelving for sure:

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Part of the museum's manual collection:

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The other side of the shelves in the picture above:

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More manuals, this time of the TM series variety:

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Another workstation:

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An overview of the manual room. The blue bound documents on the middle shelves are copies of the old base newspaper:

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The periodicals room:

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More periodicals:

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Although I was hoping to include him, the volunteer cataloging periodicals stepped just out of frame to the left for this picture:

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The textile storage room. The brown bag on top of the shelves reads "A.E.F." – as in the American Expeditionary Force of World War I:

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Looking down the other side of the shelves in the picture above:

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The layout of the shelves in the textile room. Note how each unit has a two letter code for identification:

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An overview of the textile room. The shelving map is hanging in the lower right:

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A workbench in the avionics room:

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Rows of avionics. The museum has an exhibit titled "The Origins and Development of Avionics: 1864 to the Present" in a room off the first floor:

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The aisle to the left of the one in the picture above:

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The aisle to the right of the one two pictures above:

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A pair of instrument panels just to the right as you walk in the door:

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An overview of the avionics storage room:

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Full album: Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum Collections Storage Area Tour

A big thank you goes out to Stewart Bailey, for taking the time to show us each individual room.

[Xray]

Wow looks like one could spend days there browsing around, thanks for posting

[Ken]

A few comments:

- This is a wonderful museum, for those who have not been
- The process of collecting, maintaining, and curating artifacts is generally underestimated and underappreciated
- They used to have a display room solely dedicated to Stanley Aviation, makers of the Yankee extraction seat, sad to see it disbanded
- Stewart was a huge help in allowing us to digitally scan a Yankee seat for outfitting the seat built for "The Proud American" in Dayton

Thanks for sharing,
Ken

[Noha307]

Wow looks like one could spend days there browsing around

I actually asked Stu at one point: "Can I live here?"