144 Kruger Street: A Biography
In the summer of 1905, a bond issue was authorized by which means money was procured to erect a new building to house the public school for the Elm Grove area. The old site and building were sold at auction, and a new site on the right bank of Big Wheeling Creek was purchased. This site was originally part of the Moses Shepard estate. This ground was once an Indian burial ground, and that diagonally across from the southeast corner once stood an old Indian mound. In the spring of 1906 work was begun on the new building and on March 4, 1907, the teachers and the pupils said goodbye to the old schoolhouse and took up their work in the new.
This building was an up-to-date structure for its time, a two-story brick, with an improved basement, one of the finest in the state. It contained twelve recitation rooms, a room for the Board of Education, a principal’s office and library, and two manual training rooms. It originally housed not only the grades one through eight, but also a two-year high school program.
The building remained a public school until 1991, when the last classes of Ohio County Schools were held here. The building was then used by West Liberty State College for several years, before being closed in the mid-nineties. On March 18, 1997, the building was sold at auction to the Eibel Corporation, which developed the building into the current home of the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum.
The floors in the classrooms are made of Georgia yellow pine, and the woodwork throughout the building are red pine. The tin ceilings were made by Wheeling Corrugating, a division of Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel, and are original. In the belfry of the school is still found the original school bell, weighing nearly one ton, and is still operational.
A Lifetime Dream Realized
In the middle 1970’s, Allan Robert Miller and his son, Allan Raymond, began actively collecting toy trains. Their interests began with Lionel Trains, mostly of the postwar and then-current MPC varieties. By the early 1980’s the collection had expanded to include both prewar trains and the trains manufactured by Louis Marx and Company.
Their interests continued to grow to include toys, both by Marx and by others, classic 1950’s playsets, dolls and dollhouses, and other items, and the two began seriously considering founding a museum to house their many finds. As the collection grew, so did their knowledge of trains and toys. The younger Miller has done work on numerous collector’s price guides for Greenberg Publishing and Kalmbach Publishing and has written articles for several nationally circulated collector’s magazines. Both father and son have set up informational exhibits and spoken to local groups on the topics of toys and trains.
It became apparent that the dream would become a reality, so the search for an appropriate building began. Many sites were considered before they settled on the property at 144 Kruger Street in the Elm Grove section of Wheeling, West Virginia. The building, a Victorian era school built in 1906, provides an excellent historical location to house the many classic toys from their collections, as well as from other collections from around the world. The museum has ample parking and is easily reached by anyone traveling in or through the Wheeling area.
On August 27, 1998, the facility was dedicated and opened for the first time for local media. Doors opened to the general public beginning September 1, 1998. Enjoy your visit to the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum. Take a step into your past, relive those fond memories of childhood, and visit a lifetime dream realized!