LeMay - America's Car Museum is a museum in the city of

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...

. The museum is adjacent to the

Tacoma Dome The Tacoma Dome is an indoor multi-purpose arena in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It is located south of Downtown Tacoma, adjacent to Interstate 5 in Washington, Interstate 5 and Tacoma Dome Station. It is currently used for basketball tou ...

and opened on June 2, 2012. Many of the cars on display were donated to the museum by the family of

Harold LeMay Harold E. LeMay (September 4, 1919 – November 4, 2000) was the owner of Harold LeMay Enterprises, a refuse company in the Tacoma, Washington metro area. He was the owner of one of the largest private automobile collections in the world at the ...

Details

owned a successful refuse company, Harold LeMay Enterprises, within the Tacoma metro area and amassed the world's largest private car collection. After his death, the city of Tacoma donated of land next to the

for the museum that would contain some of his car collection. The majority of the collection remains at the LeMay Family Collection at Marymount in nearby

Spanaway Spanaway is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 35,476 at the 2020 census, up from 27,227 in 2010. Spanaway is an unincorporated area near Tacoma, and is often identified together with ...

. The museum has of exhibit space, and contains a 350-car gallery showing cars notable for their speed, technology and design, as well as their importance to

car culture Since the start of the twentieth century, the role of cars has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In deve ...

. The building also contains gift shops, restoration shops,

lecture hall A lecture hall or lecture theatre is a large room used for lectures, typically at a college or university. Unlike flexible lecture rooms and classrooms with capacities normally below one hundred, the capacity of lecture halls can sometimes be m ...

s, galleries, a banquet room, and a café. From the

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...

level, main level, and outside patio, there are views of

Downtown Tacoma Downtown is the central business district of Tacoma, Washington, United States, located in the inner Northeast section of the city. It is approximately bounded east-west by A Street and Tacoma Avenue, and north-south by South 7th Street and South ...

Thea Foss Waterway The Thea Foss Waterway, formerly the City Waterway, is a north–south inlet of Commencement Bay separating downtown Tacoma, Washington, from the Port of Tacoma. History The City Waterway was created in 1902 through a dredging operation propo ...

Commencement Bay Commencement Bay is a bay of Puget Sound in the U.S. state of Washington. The city of Tacoma is located on the bay, with the Port of Tacoma occupying the southeastern end. A line drawn from Point Defiance in the southwest to Browns Point in t ...

, and the

Olympic Mountains The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus (Washington), Mount Olympus is the high ...

. Outside the museum is a courtyard and clubhouse for car clubs. The outdoor area is suitable for hosting car shows, auctions, swap meets, car club events, new car launches, and a

concours d'Elegance Concours d'Elegance ( French: ''concours d'élégance'') is a term of French origin that means a "competition of elegance" and refers to an event where prestigious vehicles are displayed and judged. It dates back to 17th-century France, where a ...

. The museum has had "Club Auto" satellite locations in Tacoma,

Kirkland, Washington Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in King County and the twelfth largest city in the state of Washington. ...

, and

Lakewood, Colorado Lakewood is the List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15 ...

Donors and sponsors

The projected cost of the museum is $100 million.

's wife,

Nancy LeMay Nancy LeMay (born May 3, 1936) is an American car enthusiast and collector. Nancy met Harold LeMay in the early 1960s, and they were married in 1963; between them they had eight children. One thing Nancy and Harold bonded over was their collecti ...

, donated $15 million to the museum. The land donated to the museum by the City of Tacoma is estimated to be worth $17 million. The

American Automobile Association American Automobile Association (AAA) is a federation of motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a privately held not-for-profit national member association and service organization with over 60 million members in the United States and Cana ...

(AAA) of Washington made the largest corporate donation to date with its 2008 commitment of $1.6 million.LeMay Lands AAA Donation
Business Examiner (2008-09-08). Retrieved on 2009-01-22. Other major museum sponsors are

Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought t ...

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

The News Tribune ''The News Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Tacoma, Washington. It is the second-largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington with a weekday circulation of 30,945 in 2020. With origins dating back to 1883, the newspaper w ...

, and

State Farm Insurance State Farm Insurance is a group of mutual insurance companies throughout the United States with corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois. Founded in 1922, it is the largest property, casualty and auto insurance provider in the United ...

. Other donors include various car collectors, auto clubs and citizens worldwide. The architect for the museum is the Los Angeles–based firm LARGE architecture. JTM Construction of Seattle was the general contractor for the museum.

References

External links

LeMay America's Car Museum
{{authority control Automobile museums in Washington (state) Museums in Tacoma, Washington Museums established in 2012 2012 establishments in Washington (state)