The E.A. Arnim Museum and Archives in Flatonia, Texas, has some unusual artifacts. Here are some of curator Judy Pate’s favorites and one that she needs your help to identify.
How many of the 12 antiques pictured in this story do you recognize? The answers appear further down in the post. Let us know if you agree or have another theory!
9. This cast-iron tool also might have been found in a blacksmith’s shop. (The museum painted the white identification numbers on the bottom.)
Bonus artifact identification*
At the top of this blog, Judy is holding a device from Flatonia’s Arnim and Lane Store that was established in 1886. The item was found in the hardware section. What is it?
The identity of the 11 antiques above
1. Bed warmer
2. Blacksmith’s form to make square nails
3. Still for cooking homebrew
4. Vigorous use of this dasher on soiled clothing in a tub of wash water loosened dirt
5. A store display buggy whip holder later repurposed as a broom and mop holder
6. Vulcanizer used to fix car tires
7. Ruffle makers
8. Bottle capper
9. Wagon spoke end trimmer
10. Water pump
* Bonus artifact: tongs used to pick nails out of a wooden keg in a general store
An unsolved mystery
Give yourself five bonus points if you can identify the wooden handled contraption below that closes when it is turned upside down and opens when it is held right side up. Judy has never seen anything quite like it.
How did you do?
1-3 answers correct: You might want to make a few more museum visits.
4-7 answers correct: You’ve been around awhile, haven’t you?
8-11 answers correct: You’re good, very good!
(Don’t forget; add 5 bonus points if you know what the artifact above is and how it was used.) We look forward to your observations and memories about the thingamajigs we’ve shared. Please click on the comment button at the end of the post to tell us what you think.
And there’s more
Explore the E.A. Arnim Museum yourself: https://www.arnimmuseum.org/
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You might also enjoy some of my other posts about rural Texas life:
- The Old Philosopher of New Dubina - March 10, 2023
- Farewell to the Farm - February 17, 2023
- Feeding Winston’s Cows in 1973 - January 20, 2023
Love this museum. Judy is so nice and informative. My husband and I have visited it a number of times and enjoyed it every time. Covid has kept us away but hope to visit it again soon. Brings back so many memories of family and friends from a time gone by. Thank you as always for keeping our history alive.
As we all come out of our Covid-induced seclusion, it’s a great time to visit small, local museums. As you point you, knowledgeable curators and docents like Judy make the trips very worthwhile!
Great article about a great museum with an outstanding curator! Judy Pate has made history come alive in the E. A. Arnim Museum. The tools covered in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage everyone to visit the museum, but I warn you, it will take several visits to even begin to see all it has to offer. Additionally, the native plant garden on the museum grounds are impressive every month of the year.
Thanks for your feedback, Mary Anne. You are so right about the amount of time it would take to see and, more importantly, appreciate everything in the E.A. Arnim Museum! The native plant garden was lovely and I hope to devote another post to it next spring when it’s at its peak, although, as you say, it has something to offer visitors any time of the year.
Reading your posts is always entertaining and informative. The museum is another on the list of things that make Texas interesting.
Thanks, Linda. It’s amazing what treasures are being held in small museums off the beaten track. Well worth hitting the highway to experience them!
It’s wonderful museum highlighted in a fun and interesting way. Well done again, Elaine. I’m looking forward to revisiting this gem and also what surprises your next blog brings. They are all diverse and thought provoking.
I agree. Curator Judy Pate has staged the artifacts in the A.F. Arnim Museum’s holdings in creative ways that are educational and beg for discussion. As for my blog post topics, the more I write the longer my list of ideas grows. Thanks for reading, Carolyn.
I am always amazed at what I can learn from visitors. Like the identification of #2, the square nail maker, when I previously had no idea what it was. And just before Elaine’s article on her blog came out, a man came over to me with #9 in his hand and asked me if I knew what it was. Although I was prepared with the answer on this one, I was greatly surprised when he rattled off “wagon spoke end trimmer,” just like that! It is also delightful when something turns up in odd places–yesterday my husband and I went to see the movie “In the Heights” and I caught a a half-second glimpse of another item we have in our collection that I thought was a cheese slicer. Turns out it is an ice shaver and one very like it was being used by Lin-Manuel Miranda! Thank you to all who have responded to this article!!!
Judy, thanks for your insight. How great that you can now make an ID for the ice shaver! Being so involved in a museum such as the Arnim must be like going on a treasure hunt that never ends – which is a good thing. See you next spring when the Texas Native Garden is at its prime!
Seeing the ID number on the bottom of the artifact brought back a lot of memories of the two summers I spent as a teenager working in a museum that had been left to our town in Manitoba. Nothing in it was catalogued; that’s what I was there to do. I took a lot of questions home to my parents!
Nancy, thanks for sharing that memory. You worked at the cataloging for two consecutive summers, so did you enjoy it or was it the best of the summer jobs open to you? Did it stir a lifelong interest in antiques or disdain for old stuff?
The Arnim Museum quiz was great fun, even though I missed at least half of them. Oh, how my Dad would have loved to walk me through there and identify all those old tools, and explain to me what they were used for and how they worked! I have a few that belonged to him, his father, or his grandfather, but the only one that might have been exotic enough for this quiz is the saw-set. I’d never even noticed that alternate teeth of a hand saw are bent out a bit from the blade in opposite directions–and you can’t tell from the tool’s appearance what it’s made to adjust.
So glad you enjoyed the Arnim Museum quiz, Helen. Yes, I bet your Dad would have nailed it and had a running commentary as he viewed the photos. My favorite item was the still. I’d read and heard about the cooking of home brew during Prohibition but had never got us close and personal with an actual relic. Can you imagine how hard the revenuers had to hit that metal to tear it apart? Talk about job dedication!
The last gadget with the wooden handle and expanding leaves caught Peter’s attention. He thinks it could be a hone for cleaning cylinders on early cars. We enjoyed the array of old artifacts and could identify most tho’ a couple were certainly puzzlers.
I’m delighted to hear that Peter recognized the last item. He is the only reader who has even ventured a guess! Thank you.