You've seen the television shows and read the magazine articles. The Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous, Secret Lives of the Super Rich, Celebrities on Yachts, and the like. People with wealth spending frivolously on articles of status and excess, paraded for envy or disdain. What else would people with too much money do, you might ask.
How about building a museum? There seem to be a number of them around Minnesota. Three hundred and fifty two of them, at last count. For a convenient listing of all of them, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Minnesota. All kinds of local town and county history museums and historical societies, of course, but a number of specialty museums, many originated and funded by local well-to-do individuals. We've stumbled across a couple in our river travels. One, a marine museum contained in a neatly restored old building along the river located next to the original manufacturing site of marine boats and motors, is located in Red Wing, Minnesota. It's only open on Saturdays or when the American Queen riverboat is in town, and has in its collection of old inboard engines one from a fishing boat owned by a commercial fisherman we knew from Bayfield, Wisconsin, Jack Erickson, built in the 1930's. Another privately funded museum we know on the river is the Minnesota Marine Museum, which is actually an art gallery of marine related paintings collected from around the world, many of which are rare and quite valuable. It was created and is maintained by the former founder and CEO of a large industrial distribution company headquartered in Winona, Minnesota.
Last week, as a conclusion to our horse camping trip to Upper Sioux Agency, we stopped by a World War II museum I had been told about previously. It's located at the airport in Granite Falls, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Unlike some of the more modest local museums, this one blew us away.
Ron Fagen was a Minnesota farm kid that grew up near Granite Falls. His father served in WWII as an infantryman, participating in D-Day, the liberation of Paris, and the Battle of the Bulge. His family has always harbored an intense patriotism, as intense as Ron's love for his father. Early in his life, Ron enlisted in the army and served as an engineer building roads and infrastructure, teaching him construction. After the army, he applied his entrepreneurial inclinations to partnering in a construction company to build agricultural structures. An early proponent of ethanol, after striking out on his own starting Fagen, Inc., headquartered in Granite Falls, he started building ethanol plants. Over the 2000's, he built the largest industrial energy construction company in the world, with over $1 billion in revenue at the height of the ethanol build-out. They've since expanded into other renewable energy manufacturing plant construction, as well as globally.
Ron's father was also an aviation enthusiast, a passion that Ron adopted. Several years ago, Ron started buying warbirds with the intent of preserving functioning aviation history. In short order, his inventory grew to require better hangaring facilities, as well as more maintenance and restoration capability. His whole family, including a son who also caught the aviation bug, engaged in his interest in World War II history. So back around 2010, they decided to focus their collective energy and wealth on creating a WWII history museum, complete with active, functioning aircraft and ground transportation vehicles.
They did so without any shortcuts or shortage of ambition. The museum itself is contained in three hangars built to withstand whatever nature might throw at them - including tornadoes. Solid brick structures with thick concrete walls and extremely heavy duty hangar doors, they include pictorials, murals, and bronze statues created on commission by expert artists. Everything is pristine and immaculately maintained. Especially the vehicles. Aircraft have been restored using the highest quality materials and components, many fabricated in the adjoining machine, wood, and metal shops, staffed by seven full time tradesmen.
A built to specification WWII airfield control tower has been recreated in the middle of these hangars, along with a U.K. briefing room quonset hut, both fully outfitted with restored and operational radio and navigation equipment. They're designed to give the actual look, feel and sound of operations during the war. The Fighter hangar has a complete WWII research library, and the Bomber Hangar includes a movie theater and a collection of drone engines and radio equipment.
That's a legacy intended to teach and inform coming generations, while preserving a generation of aircraft and ground vehicles. They also extend their reach by flying their aircraft, which include a rare P-38, P-40's, P-51's, an FM-2, a slew of trainers, and a B25, to airshows and memorials around the country. All much more valuable, I would think, than a bigger yacht or fourth or fifth home.
How about building a museum? There seem to be a number of them around Minnesota. Three hundred and fifty two of them, at last count. For a convenient listing of all of them, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Minnesota. All kinds of local town and county history museums and historical societies, of course, but a number of specialty museums, many originated and funded by local well-to-do individuals. We've stumbled across a couple in our river travels. One, a marine museum contained in a neatly restored old building along the river located next to the original manufacturing site of marine boats and motors, is located in Red Wing, Minnesota. It's only open on Saturdays or when the American Queen riverboat is in town, and has in its collection of old inboard engines one from a fishing boat owned by a commercial fisherman we knew from Bayfield, Wisconsin, Jack Erickson, built in the 1930's. Another privately funded museum we know on the river is the Minnesota Marine Museum, which is actually an art gallery of marine related paintings collected from around the world, many of which are rare and quite valuable. It was created and is maintained by the former founder and CEO of a large industrial distribution company headquartered in Winona, Minnesota.
Last week, as a conclusion to our horse camping trip to Upper Sioux Agency, we stopped by a World War II museum I had been told about previously. It's located at the airport in Granite Falls, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Unlike some of the more modest local museums, this one blew us away.Ron Fagen was a Minnesota farm kid that grew up near Granite Falls. His father served in WWII as an infantryman, participating in D-Day, the liberation of Paris, and the Battle of the Bulge. His family has always harbored an intense patriotism, as intense as Ron's love for his father. Early in his life, Ron enlisted in the army and served as an engineer building roads and infrastructure, teaching him construction. After the army, he applied his entrepreneurial inclinations to partnering in a construction company to build agricultural structures. An early proponent of ethanol, after striking out on his own starting Fagen, Inc., headquartered in Granite Falls, he started building ethanol plants. Over the 2000's, he built the largest industrial energy construction company in the world, with over $1 billion in revenue at the height of the ethanol build-out. They've since expanded into other renewable energy manufacturing plant construction, as well as globally.
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| First Class, Modern Reconstruction |
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| One of Seven Operating in the world |
They did so without any shortcuts or shortage of ambition. The museum itself is contained in three hangars built to withstand whatever nature might throw at them - including tornadoes. Solid brick structures with thick concrete walls and extremely heavy duty hangar doors, they include pictorials, murals, and bronze statues created on commission by expert artists. Everything is pristine and immaculately maintained. Especially the vehicles. Aircraft have been restored using the highest quality materials and components, many fabricated in the adjoining machine, wood, and metal shops, staffed by seven full time tradesmen.
A built to specification WWII airfield control tower has been recreated in the middle of these hangars, along with a U.K. briefing room quonset hut, both fully outfitted with restored and operational radio and navigation equipment. They're designed to give the actual look, feel and sound of operations during the war. The Fighter hangar has a complete WWII research library, and the Bomber Hangar includes a movie theater and a collection of drone engines and radio equipment.
That's a legacy intended to teach and inform coming generations, while preserving a generation of aircraft and ground vehicles. They also extend their reach by flying their aircraft, which include a rare P-38, P-40's, P-51's, an FM-2, a slew of trainers, and a B25, to airshows and memorials around the country. All much more valuable, I would think, than a bigger yacht or fourth or fifth home.
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