In 1965 Lyle Dumont and his wife, Helen, opened their first museum in an old schoolhouse that Lyle used to attend not far from their home. The schoolhouse was attached to pole barns, and Lyle and Helen filled it with old iron: tractors and cars and everything else you can imagine. “But we never had it good enough to get handicapped people through on wheelchairs, so eventually we closed that up,” Lyle says. “In 1994 we built the new facility we have now, which is a lot more professional.”
The museum is visited by all types of people, from tour bus groups and tractor clubs to school groups and the like. In addition to old iron, there is an extensive Roy Rogers exhibit, a couple of large running Lionel train setups, toys, dolls, dishes, horse-drawn equipment, farm toys and trucks, and much more.
The 24,000-square foot museum is open from May-October from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., or by appointment. Admission is $8.
Read more about Lyle Dumont’s collection in Mogul Engines: The Whole Line.
For more information:
— The Dumont Museum is located on Hwy 149, 3 miles south & 1/8 mile west of Sigourney; www.dumontmuseum.com; (641) 622-2592 or (641) 622-9937; oliver@lisco.com