Cole Land Transportation Museum schedules May 4 opening

A dream come true is how the founder of the Cole Land Transportation Museum has described the forthcoming grand opening of the museum at 405 Perry Rd., Bangor.

Foundation president Galen Cole committed Coles Express to the project three years ago, promising that he and his companies could handle the financing and construction of the building and furnish 4 acres of land if Maine people and business firms would donate the vehicles.

Construction on the building measuring 200 by 202 feet began in April 1989 and was completed last December.

The grand opening is a 3-day event scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 4 and last through 8 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, and Cole says he expects some 45,000 visitors — a third of them students — to visit the museum in its first year.

W. Tom Sawyer, Bangor City Council chairman, and Sue Cole, wife of the museum’s founder, will cut the ribbon and usher in the first visitors at 9 a.m. May 4. Also on hand will be representatives of the U.S. Postal Service to issue commemorative stamp cancellations.

More than 150 Maine-used, or Maine-made antique vehicles are on display in the museum, including a railroad engine, freight car, caboose, as well as a railroad station, section house and blacksmith shop.

Also on display are snow rollers, snowplows, cars, trucks, highway rollers, log loaders, bicycles, sleds, wagons, carriages, sleighs, fire pumpers, ladder trucks and fire engines, road graders, concrete mixers, tractors, potato trucks and equipment, plus several other vehicles.

The collection is located on Maine cobblestones which were donated by the Guilford Transportation Co.

To honor the more than 100 donors of vehicles and services, a special pre-grand opening with wine, cheese and a buffet dinner and first showing of the collection, is scheduled the evening of Thursday, May 3, by invitation. Gov. John R. McKernan Jr. will join Cole in thanking donors for their gifts. In addition, more than 50 volunteers committed to contribute time to staff the museum, will be honored.

A special section of the museum includes the vehicle history of Coles Express, from a 1917 horse-drawn dirt road wagon to a turnpike diesel 18-wheeler. The collection is believed to be the most complete assortment of one company’s highway equipment on public display in the country. Another special section is devoted to early Maine snowplows, including a snow roller.

Before construction started a year ago more than 75 vehicles had been donated. Coles vehicles traveled more than 10,000 miles, mostly within Maine, to transport donated vehicles to the museum.

Beside each vehicle is a description. Two cast-iron street lights located in the museum lobby were earlier based on Central Street in Bangor during the first half of the century and were reportedly removed from the vicinity of Dakin’s Sporting Goods, where the FBI gunned down the Brady Gang in 1937. Four large hardwood benches from Bangor’s original Union Station have been installed for public convenience.

Regular hours for the museum will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week from May through October.

Admission will be $2 for adults 19 to 61 years old, and $1 for seniors. Admission is free for children and their teachers. During the grand opening weekend, all adults will be admitted for $1.

Nearly 400 senior citizen groups have been invited for a free visit during 1990.