PEORIA MAGAZINE July 2023

T he Peoria region has a repu tation for having a large and talented volunteer pool. Proof of that exists at the Wheels O' Time Museum, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer “We call it a country club for people who like to get their hands dirty,” said Gary Bragg, 86, one of the museum’s founders. Some 100 volunteers are involved at Wheels O’ Time (WOT), some on specific projects, others handling day-to-day maintenance needs such as cutting the grass, said Executive Director Laura Evancho, who oversees a museum on the move. The latest addition to the museum is the train cars that once served as dining cars at Vonachen’s Old Place restaurant in the Junction City Shop ping Center. Twelve years of metic ulous restoration by volunteers have resulted in the opportunity for visitors to walk into the past with a dining car that looks ready to serve and a business car that really means business. Train cars, vintage automobiles and fire engines are what most people associate with WOT but there’s a lot more to see, said Evancho, who became the museum’s first executive director in 2019. Previously, she had served as director of the Heartland Festival Orchestra, taking over when that organization became a non-profit in 2009. Now Evancho is doing much the same thing at WOT, helping it get realigned as a non-profit. OPENING THE DOORS TO DOLLARS John Amdahl, interim president of the museum board, said the new tax status makes a difference. “We were able to get donations we couldn’t get otherwise,” he said. “The LeTourneau Steel House, the metal building restored to its original 1938 state, was the first addition we acquired as the result of being a non-profit. Komatsu was able to donate the building and the trades provided the hook-ups.” Amdahl noted that WOT’s new Gen erations Building — with displays of the

S P O T L I G H T

WHEELS O’ TIME The ‘country club for people who like to get their hands dirty’ turns 40

BY STEVE TARTER PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

62 JULY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE