Antique Snowmobile Museum

ANTIQUE SNOWMOBILE MUSEUM DREAM INCHES
 CLOSER TO REALITY IN MILLINOCKET

Re-Posted from the Katahdin Times of July 20, 1988

Millinocket - Last week, with the pouring of a foundation, a long time dream of Steve Campbell and the Northern Timber Cruisers Snowmobile Club of Millinocket began emerging as a reality. Last week's work marked the beginning of construction on an antique snowmobile museum that will be Maine's only such museum and is expected to be the largest in the country. Presently there are only two such museum's in the U.S., one in Saynor, Wisconsin and the other in Bear Brook, New Hampshire.

      Construction work on the two story, 30 foot by 50 foot structure is expected to be completed in the fall. The museum will have the capacity to house 24 antique snowmobiles. The upstairs floor area will include a film room and a display room for literature, calendars, etc. The first machine destined to be exhibited at the soon to be museum is the initial machine owned and operated by Great Northern Paper. This snowmobile is currently being refurbished by local antique restorer Steve Campbell.

      The dream of a snowmobile museum in which to house antique vehicles began growing in the early 1980's, beginning in 1983 when Campbell began finding and restoring old snowmobiles. In 1984 when Robert Brodeur organized a Snowmobile Pioneers reunion and in 1985 when Campbell himself organized "Allagash '85", a re-enactment of the early snowmobile expeditions in which Campbell's father, Earlan, was a leading figure.

      An off-shoot of the 1984 Snowmobile Reunion was a feeling on Steve Campbell's part that a snowmobile museum should be established to preserve the history of the machine. "I don't think the people of Maine or the Millinocket area realize how big a part our area played in the early stages," Campbell observed recently.

      Campbell and the Northern Timber Cruisers have worked toward that end since then, staging fund raisers. Money has been raised for the project through donations, public suppers and catering of private parties, plus last winter's fund raiser involving the awarding of a snowmobile. More than $7,000 has been raised through this effort, with the final figure at $10,000. The original goal was $7,500, but as Campbell put it, "The cost of materials was going up faster than we could raise funds". The club expects to stage an open house sometime this fall.

      Directly responsible for Steve Campbell's interest in antique snowmobiles, Campbell has said is the fact his father, Earlan, played a large role in the start of the snowmobile industry in the late 1950's and 1960's through guiding Polaris Industry expeditions into the Allagash (thereby testing their machines).

       This plaque is presented in proud appreciation of the many hours of hard work and determination that those listed below put in to make this museum possible. Without them the NORTHERN TIMBER CRUISERS SNOWMOBILE MUSEUM would never have been a reality, nor would it continue to grow.

MANY THANKS!

    The following donors have given generously to make the building what it is. Without them it may never have become a reality. It is with great pleasure that we honor them permanently with this plaque.

Many well deserved thanks from the

NORTHERN TIMBER CRUISERS SNOWMOBILE CLUB