THE ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S MYSTERY

One of Atlanta’s better-kept secrets is its museum inside the Chamber of Commerce building, which used to be the town’s railway depot.

The museum is instructive. Perhaps that is why it is named the Atlanta Historical Museum. One can learn a lot here. An annual visit to refresh memories and appreciation would be worthwhile.

The city was given the depot by the Missouri and Pacific Railroad in 1986. At the time, it was being used as a storage shed. In the 1990s, civic-minded individuals began making plans to save the building for history. Led by Lynne Spivey, the Atlanta City Development Corporation took the project in hand.

An Atlanta Depot Restoration Project was managed by the Atlanta District of the Texas Department of Transportation. Some $525,905 was raised. The city, community and ACDC contributing $192,250 of this amount. Remodeling work began in 2000 and was completed in 2001.

The museum, originally designed to be centered around children, opened in 2003.

Most young people today come to see the replica of the Bessie Coleman airplane. The Queen Bess Jenny model airplane is an outstanding holding commemorating the Atlanta native as the nation’s first African-American female pilot.

The late Jack Thompson built the replica, which is two-thirds the size of a real one. He artistically created many of the other items in the museum as well, such as the replica Eli Whitney cotton gin.

Thompson had obtained original plans for the 1916 Curtis Jenny, which Bessie Coleman flew, and built a replica in 28 days even after being told by an airplane enthusiast it would probably take two years.

He built the airplane in his garage and never saw it together in one piece until he, his helper and four firemen hoisted it through the doors of the museum room and assembled it there.

Today, it is an unexpected find. No one expects to see an airplane inside a train depot.

The museum has other interesting details. Did you know Atlanta had a World War I steamship named after the town? This was the result of raising $1.3 million in Liberty Bonds for the war effort. Two official representatives went to launching ceremonies in the Alabama shipyard. Their names and a newspaper-type photo of the steamship can be found in the Atlanta Historical Museum.

Staff photos by Neil Abeles ■ This model of Bessie Coleman’s airplane is in the Atlanta Historical Museum.

■ Cruz Ferrusquia, grandson of Stephen and Judy Harris, sits atop the cotton bale at the Atlanta Museum. Such bales were reduced to about 500 pounds by huge compress machines for shipping by railroads to textile mills on the East Coast.

■ A telephone-operator’s station is open to hands-on inspection at the Atlanta Museum. A trip down memory lane is available with the 68-year-old telephone directory for 1952.

■ Looking through the handle of a depot bag handling cart, the outdoor identifying name of the Atlanta Museum is seen.

■ This instructive picture tells about this region’s cotton economy history and the hard work people were capable of doing.