Fort
Wallace Museum
Phonograph
Sightings at Fort Wallace Museum, Kansas
Doug Boilesen
2023
The Fort Wallace Museum in Wallace,
Kansas is located on the western edge of Kansas. This region
is part of the High Plains with few people and small towns.
Wallace's population is 45. Nine miles away is Sharon Springs,
the county seat of Wallace County, population 751. The only
standing remnant of the old Fort Wallace is the Fort Wallace
Cemetery but a local association established the Fort Wallace
Museum and it's obvious that it exists because of the work of
its volunteers and their pride in this museum.
The main building is where most
of its displays and smaller objects are located with four other
buildings telling their own stories: the Pond Creek Stage Station,
once a “home” or eating station for the Butterfield's Overland
Despatch (BOD); the Sunderland-Poe Building with two Conestoga
Wagons, buggies, farm implements and machinery; the Weskan Depot,
an early railroad depot of the area; and the 1888 Bethany Lutheran
Church.
I've listed the Fort Wallace Museum
in Phonographia's list of PhonoAvenue Museums even though
it only has a few phonographs.
In 2023, Jere DeBacker, a Friend
of the Phonograph, donated one of his electric Victrola
Credenzas (VE 8-30) to the museum so that made adding the Fort
Wallace Museum to Phonographia's PhonoAvenue
list personally special.
The following are my phonograph
sightings at the Fort Wallace Museum along with a few other
displays in the main building.
For more information visit the
Fort Wallace Museum website.
Jere DeBacker presenting
his Electric Victrola Credenza (VE 8-30) to the Fort Wallace
Museum in 2023.
The Victrola Credenza,
later called the Victrola 8-30, according to Victor expert Robert
W. Baumbach "is probably the most famous of all the Orthophonic
Victrolas." This machine on display is the Victrola Electric
8-30 which "contained the largest horn Victor made, and
was always chosen to demonstrate the Orthophonic principles."
Priced at $300 in January 1926 the AC electric motor for this
Victrola 8-30 would have been an additional $35. (Baumbach,
Robert W., Look for the Dog, Stationery X-Press, 1981,
p. 194).
For more information
about the history of the Victrola Credenza see the excellent
Victor-Victrola
page.
The
Davenola, made by Davenport Cabinet Works, 829 West 2nd
Street, Davenport, Iowa, circa 1920.
Edison Standard
Phonograph with Edison Gold Moulded Records (lid hanging on
wall)
Edison Home Phonograph
(circa 1908) with Columbia Phonograph Company Records
Busy- Bee Phonograph
(Q style) with records (no horn)
The Harmony (or
similiar) Table Top Phonograph, circa 1916
Babson Bros., Chicago,
Eight-panel Phonograph Horn
Unknown Maker,
Combination 45 RPM Phonograph and AM Radio
