Since both boys love trains, we took them to Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum in Jackson, Tennessee when we were in that part of the state. There were real train engines there which was the big draw for them (including getting to ring the bell):
…and of course the museum had a shop:
Casey’s home:
The crocheted bedspread was made by Janie, Casey’s wife:
Wow at this bathtub:
What I liked seeing most was this paper shelf edging:
If you grew up liking Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House as much as I did, maybe you remember her mentioning how Ma would save brown wrapping paper, and:
She folded them, and she showed Mary and Laura how to cut tiny bits out of the folded paper with the scissors. When each unfolded her paper, there was a row of stars.
Ma spread the paper on the shelves behind the stove. The stars hung over the edges of the shelves, and the light shone through them.
Many thanks to this site for mention of this passage above (and has many excellent varieties of shelf edging), and this one, for her own examples.
On the other side of the parking lot from the museum and home is a large building with a restaurant, soda fountain, and ‘old country store’:
…with this inside at the ice cream parlor so of course — their sign states that it was handmade in the 1880s and they think that of the 75 or so built by the company, only three remain. Doing a little research, this is by the American Soda Fountain Company in Philadelphia which was founded by men including John Lippincott in 1891 (so maybe the 1880s date isn’t correct?). Not sure how they know how many remain. A lot about the how-to of soda fountains here.
A video of one of the America Soda Fountain examples up for auction this year, with nice detail: