Plainview's Klown Doll Museum actually got its start early in the 50's when the Plainview Klown Band was organized by a group of tourism-minded individuals who thought that it would be good for the community. For over 50 years now, the Plainview Klown Band has continued to serve as Plainview's good will ambassadors with the "oom pah pah" type of music they play while attired in clown suits.
Klown Days were periodically a summer celebration and continues as the Klown Festival today.
Over fifteen years ago an industrious Chamber of Commerce secretary placed several clown dolls in the Chamber office. More were donated, and soon there was the start of the Plainview Klown Doll Museum.
Just before the turn of the century, the City of Plainview was able to purchase the current home of the Museum, in a beautiful location along Highway 20. The Chamber of Commerce cooperated with the City and the building was renovated on the interior and the exterior was cleaned up to keep its original decor. Many volunteers helped with the project. The building became the new home of the Plainview Klown Doll Museum.
It is open six days a week during the summer tourism season, and five afternoons a week during the rest of the year through the efforts of an Experience Works individual and many volunteers.
All of the clown dolls that are part of the display were given to the museum by a wide range of people. Some have come from other countries. Some were made for klown doll contests in Plainview. Others were clown dolls that residents owned, or saw in their travels, and purchased and gave to the the Museum. | More are being given regularly, and all gifts of clown dolls are welcome and much appreciated. They are numbered and a registry available at the counter tells who each was donated by.
A major contributor to the collection was Mattie Vanderpool, a resident of Yankton, S.D and a professional clown. She had collected clown dolls over the years with many of them given to her as gifts. Her tally came to over 1,500 clown dolls in a wide variety of styles and shapes and colors and sizes. She had visited Plainview many times and decided that when she answered her calling to become a minister, that the Plainview Klown Doll Museum should be the home of her collection of dolls with the stipulation that they be made available for others to enjoy at a very nominal fee. That nominal fee ended up being "free."
Mattie passed away in 2002 and her collection is now in the "Mattie Vanderpool Collection Room."
The dolls kept coming and soon a successful effort was made through contributions of alumni and many others to construct an addition to double the size of the museum. That was completed in the summer of 2007 when Gov. Dave Heineman came to cut the ribbon and also declare Plainview as the Klown Kapital of Nebraska.
Another group of over 1000 dolls are displayed in the lighted cases in the new addition. They were the collection of Jeri Soens, now a Methodist minister serving a Nebraska congregation. who wanted a home for her collection. She found it at the Plainview Klown Doll Museum.
A recent addition is a set of five large framed pictures, reproductions of the original painted by Red Skelton. They have Certificates of Authenticity signed by Skelton himself authenticated by his thumb print. Three of the pictures are on loan for display in businesses elsewhere in Plainview. |
|
Plainview, Nebraska >
History |