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I visited the Evergreen Museum yesterday, though today was the first I've heard about the Sheriff's auction. Let's see if I can clarify a few things:
There are four buildings on the museum's campus -- from west to east they are as follows:
1. The Wings and Waves waterpark, with the Evergreen 747 on top of the building, from which water slides drop down into the building and into the main pool.
2. The original Evergreen Museum building with the Hughes Flying Boat and most of the warbirds that have been mentioned lately.
3. The Theater building, which shows three different hour-length movies rotating throughout the day.
4. The Space Museum, which holds many space exhibits, but also a number of jet aircraft, an X-15, an SR-71, and a large number of helicopters.
So, the auction involves the two buildings "on the ends," the Wings and Waves building and the Space Museum building. As far as I have seen, every part of the museum has been open and running throughout all of the news that has been discussed in this thread. And as far as I can tell, no aircraft listed or rumored as sold or for sale lately have left any of the buildings.
New this visit was a trio of what I guess you could call "cold war fighter aircraft" parked in the rear of the main parking lot, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell you what they were -- I'll try to get a picture or two posted. After asking around, apparently these were in the Museum's "rehabilitation building" which must have been some kind of leased building across the highway (the McMinnville Airport is across Oregon Highway 18 from the Museum), and they apparently "lost their lease" or otherwise had to abandon the building. These are in "under restoration" shape, lacking things like paint, engines, wings, or whatever on each aircraft.
Also new in the main museum building was the "Help us save a Vietnam Vet!" display -- a Cessna O-2A Skymaster, which was parked where the Learjet 24 had spent the past several years -- the Learjet is now in the Space Museum, along with the jet aircraft on display there. And supposedly the museum also added a new helicopter to the helicopters on display in the Space Museum.
So, that's the situation as I have seen it. The article about the Sheriff's auction is quite correct in its description of how the museum has had to deal with seemingly one financial crisis after another, after the demise of the Evergreen Aviation company and Delford Smith.
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