Jones' Fantastic Museum was a family-oriented museum filled with a unique collection of weird and amazing inventions, strange

sideshow In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair, or other such attraction. Types There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions: *The Ten-in-One offers a program of ten seq ...

attractions, old-time

dime museum Dime museums were institutions that were popular at the end of the 19th century in the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class ( lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper mid ...

machines and antique exhibits, originally located in Snohomish County, and later in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington, United States, from 1963 to 1980. It was created by avid collector Walt a.k.a. Doc Jones.

Early history

In 1959, Jones and his wife Dorothy opened up a museum on Gunnysack Hill, a mile-long section of U.S. Route 99 just north of

Lynnwood, Washington Lynnwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The city is part of the Seattle metropolitan area and is located north of Seattle and south of Everett, near the junction of Interstate 5 and Interstate 405. It is the fou ...

. This first museum was also named Jones' Fantastic Museum. Many Jones pieces formed a popular attraction at the

1962 Seattle World's Fair The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The collection subsequently found a home on the balcony level (third floor) of the former Food Circus (now Center House) in the

Seattle Center Seattle Center is an arts, educational, tourism and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington, United States. Spanning an area of 74 acres (30 ha), it was originally built for the 1962 World's Fair. Its landmark feature is the tall Space Needl ...

. Called Jones' Fantastic Show when it first opened on Saturday, October 5, 1963, the Seattle museum was renamed Jones' Fantastic Museum sometime after the Gunnysack Hill museum closed. Below are some excerpts from an article written by Terri Malinowski that appeared December 12, 1963 in the Northshore Citizen newspaper:

Exhibits and attractions

Displayed outside the entrance to the museum were many old pictures of sideshow freaks and human oddities. The Okeh Laughing Record, a 1923 recording of a man and woman laughing while a musician plays a funereal trumpet solo, played in a continuous loop along with a recording of Jones as a sideshow

barker Barker may refer to: Occupations * Barker (occupation), a person who attempts to attract patrons to entertainment events * Barker (coachbuilder), a builder of horse-drawn coaches and later of bodywork for prestige cars * a person who strips tanbar ...

, enticing people to enter. For 13 years the museum featured a real live

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

named Count Pugsly who roamed around scaring children and adults alike, even outside the museum. Sometimes he would appear to be a

mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. Pr ...

, standing still until an unsuspecting visitor stepped in front of him. As soon as the realization struck the visitor that no activating floor mat was there, he would walk towards them, often eliciting loud screams of fright. The role of the vampire was played by future horror author

W. H. Pugmire Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire (born William Harry Pugmire; May 3, 1951 – March 26, 2019), was a writer of weird fiction and horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically were published as W. H. Pugmire (his adopted middle name derive ...

. Pugmire's recent works include

Lovecraftian Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...

books of weird fiction. His earlier works include the publication of the punk rock

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...

''Punk Lust'' in the 1980s. The museum included a collection of funhouse mirrors, mannequins sporting extra legs and arms, a "Death Ray" machine, Sally Rand's dancing slippers, a long row of electronic switches that randomly activated a variety of

automaton An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

s, a nine-foot-tall "mummified

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

" called Olaf the Giant, and a talking skull wearing a

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

moustache that loudly spouted gibberish in German. Jones had sped up an actual recording of Hitler, giving his speech a cartoonish quality. The sign in front of the skull read "Hitler is Alive!" An especially memorable item was the Laughing Lady, dubbed

Laffing Sal Laffing Sal is one of several animatronic characters that were built primarily to attract carnival and amusement park patrons to funhouses and dark rides throughout the United States. Its movements were accompanied by a raucous laugh that someti ...

by her manufacturer. She rocked back and forth laughing uncontrollably with her arms and legs swinging wildly whenever someone stepped on a floor mat in front of her glass and wood case. More exhibits appear in the list of items below.

Later history

Doc Jones committed suicide in the early 1970s. In 1973, the third floor of the Food Circus was being renovated, so Jones' heirs moved a greatly downsized version of the museum into the basement. Much smaller than before, it remained there until 1980. Two years later, the entire collection was donated to

Seattle Children's Hospital Seattle Children's, formerly Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, formerly Children's Orthopedic Hospital, is a children's hospital in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The hospital specializes in the care of infa ...

per Jones' will. The will stipulated that if the contents of the museum were ever sold, they must be sold as a whole and not broken up. The hospital put the collection up for sale in 1984. After searching one year for a buyer, museum broker Bill Zimmerman found collector Jim Schmit of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

. According to Zimmerman, the sale "was difficult because the items were so diverse and bizarre and because the hospital wanted to sell it in its entirety." Schmit, already known to

Southern Oregon Southern Oregon is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon south of Lane County and generally west of the Cascade Range, excluding the southern Oregon Coast. Counties include Douglas, Jackson, Klamath, and Josephine. It includes the Southern Oreg ...

ians for gathering together the world's largest collection of antique

outhouse An outhouse is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket toilet, but other forms of dry toilet, dry (non-flushing) toilets may be encountered. The term may als ...

s, purchased the entire collection for an undisclosed amount, in partnership with his former neighbor and friend,

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

businessman Ralph Bothne. As of late 1985, much of the Jones collection formed part of the Lakeview Fantastic Museum, located in the small Southern Oregon town of Lakeview on

U.S. Route 395 U.S. Route 395 (US 395) is a U.S. Route in the western United States. The southern terminus of the route is in the Mojave Desert at Interstate 15 near Hesperia. The northern terminus is at the Canada–US border near Laurier, where the road be ...

near the

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

border. For some reason—perhaps a dearth of visitors due to the remote location—by 1991 Schmit had moved his museum to a more prominent location in

Redmond, Oregon Redmond is a city in Deschutes County, Oregon, United States. Incorporated on July 6, 1910, the city is on the eastern side of Oregon's Cascade Range, in the High Desert in Central Oregon. From Redmond there is access to recreational opportunit ...

. Renamed the World Famous Fantastic Museum, it opened in June 1991. There is evidence to suggest that the museum's relationship with Redmond city planners was always contentious. Schmit's putting up a

Ferris wheel A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsules ...

on the property may have led directly to the closing of the popular and successful museum in 1996. In May 1997, Schmit opened up the Museum of the Fantastic in

Sisters, Oregon Sisters is a city in Deschutes County, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Bend, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,038 at the 2010 census. History The community takes its name from the nearby Three Sisters mount ...

. Containing only 10% of his collection, it was shut down less than two years after it opened.

Breakup of the collection

At some point, perhaps around the time the Redmond museum opened, another museum containing a portion of the Jones collection opened in

Yakima, Washington Yakima ( or ) is a city in and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, and the state's 11th-largest city by population. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 96,968 and a metropolitan population of 256,728. The uninco ...

. The existence of this other museum—hundreds of miles from Redmond—probably marks the beginning of the dissolution of the Jones collection. However, the two collections were still displayed under one name: World Famous Fantastic Museum. In 1993, Doug Higley received on loan many Jones pieces from both museums for his True Wonders Old Time Museum at Lake Tahoe in California. Sharing Jones' passion for sideshows, freaks and oddities, Higley went to great effort and expense to make his Tahoe museum the best around. Despite his great care and attention to detail, Higley's museum only lasted about a year. Visitors to the area instead spent their money in the casinos adjacent to the museum.

List of items

*"Abdominal" Snow Woman *Amazing Mechanical Jazz Band *Baseball coin-op game *Bicycle air conditioner *Blow torch/hot air machine for politicians *" Captain Hook's hook" *Chamber of Horrors *Coin-op game with machine guns that blast Nazi warplanes *Counterfeiter's workshop *Four-legged lady *

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

in a bird cage *Germ Killer mallet *Hall of funhouse mirrors *"Hitler is Alive!" talking skull *Human skeleton in a display case *Inhuman Head (in barber shop box) *Jules Verne death ray machine *Laughing Lady *Life-size elephant automaton *Man from Mars Machine *Manley Model 49 popcorn maker *Olaf the Giant *Petrified Space Man *Photo gallery of sideshow freaks *Pianotainer

player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern i ...

*Quartet of musical monkeys *Sally Rand's dancing slippers *Shoot the Bear coin-op game *Spiked chair "where

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

sat for inspiration" *Two-headed lady *Voice-O-Graph recording machine

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Jones' Fantastic Museum (Facebook fans of page)Jones' Fantastic Museum (YouTube Channel)
Defunct museums in Washington (state) Sisters, Oregon