C = Cole Land Transportation Museum

I’ll bet you thought I would choose Campobello Island for C. But I can’t, because it’s a Canadian Island located in the mouth of the Bay of Fundy (see F).

Instead, I have something fun for the whole family, a place where Rhe might have taken Jack on a weekend, maybe with Sam in tow, since he likes old cars.

The Cole Land Transportation Museum is located in Bangor, ME, and is open seven days a week from May to November. This museum was created to collect, preserve, and display (before they disappear forever) a cross section of Maine’s land transportation equipment as well as U.S. military memorabilia to remind this and future generations of the high price some Americans have paid to protect our freedom.

There is always a back story to every museum, and this one is no

exception. Charlie Flanagan and Galen Cole, best friends from Bangor High School, served their country together during World War II. Cole was 19 when he was wounded by a German shell that killed five fellow soldiers when it hit the half-track they were riding in during the Battle of the Rhineland in April 1945. Flanagan had been killed in action five months earlier on the Siegfried Line. Here is what Galen Cole has said about Charlie Flanagan to more than 30,000 youngsters who’ve visited the museum over two decades: “Your freedom meant more to him than did his life.”

After his discharge in 1946, he and his wife raised five children and grew

the Cole transportation companies. His creations included a tank van that allowed the company to transport petroleum and freight in separate compartments. But the man who kept an eye out for what was new and innovative never lost his love for those things that served well in the past. Hence, the museum.

The museum contains the former Maine Central Railroad Company’s

station house, a Maine Central Railroad car and the front car of the Bangor

and Aroostook Railroad engine, which one may board. It also features vintage automobiles, including a Stanley Steamer, early horse-drawn wagons and a prairie schooner, which is a scaled-down

covered wagon. The museum also includes farm tractors, a potato harvester (potatoes have historically been a primary export of Maine), a horse-drawn hearse, and delivery trucks of dairy products and ice. A special room includes a command car used in World War II,and there are also outdoor military vehicle exhibits of both World War II and the Vietnam War.

Happy A-Zing!

World War II tank (Tikiko)