Museums

OGDEN -- Union Station's railroad museum has railroad watches, lanterns, signs, bells and whistles in profusion.

But an Indian war bonnet from Little Big Horn? Tombstones? A shoe repair outfit?

Richard Couturier spent 13 years cataloging Union Station's very full basement, so little surprises him -- but even he shook his head at the war bonnet.

ROY — The Roy Historical Museum is in serious need of volunteers if the museum is to stay up and running, officials said recently.

Museum hours are from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Longtime volunteer and original founding member of the museum committee Faye Field said if more volunteers don’t come forward, it will be difficult to keep the museum open.

“We want to keep it going,” she said.

For details about volunteering, call Field at 801-773-0522.

BOUNTIFUL -- A proposed regional museum project for south Davis County has moved one step closer to becoming a reality.

Members of the Bountiful Redevelopment Agency and the city council voted Tuesday in separate measures to create the framework to move a museum project forward. The RDA voted 6-0 to authorize an interlocal agreement for city staff to manage the project on behalf of the agency and authorize the use of tax increment funding to pay for the project.

The RDA vote also authorizes the agency to pay funds to the city, which then may disburse them as necessary to complete the project.

OGDEN -- The Horizon Milling Co. is trying to donate a switch engine to Union Station's train museum, but vandals and copper thieves are making the job harder.

The engine, now sitting on a siding at the mill in West Ogden, was supposed to be on display May 7 for National Train Day, but when workers at the mill tried to fire it up, it was dead.

Sometime in the past two weeks, thieves stripped the engine of all its visible copper.

An interactive attraction featuring gangster memorabilia and commentary from film mobsters James Caan, Mickey Rourke and Frank Vincent opens Wednesday on the Las Vegas Strip. And Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former mob defense lawyer, plans to launch his Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement later this year.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It's a hall of fame for the infamous -- a collection of artifacts from con men, large and small, who swindled, stole and cheated to get everything from bread money to billions.

The Fraud Museum, an exhibit in an Austin office building, contains a Bernard Madoff engraved cigar box, given to clients as tokens of his appreciation; now-worthless stock certificates from Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia; and a canceled 1975 check from inside-trader Ivan Boesky.