Saturday, February 25, 2012

Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum

We went to two museums housed in one big building in Patterson, LA. The full name is the Wedell Williams Aviation Museum and the Cypress Sawmill Museum. The museum is a division of Louisiana State Museum with free admission! Wedell and Williams were two guys from LA that were very good at flying/building airplanes. Here are some pictures!





This platform is where we watched a video telling us about the history of the planes on exhibit.


Next we walked over to the Cypress Sawmill Museum. The cypress trees were cut from the Atchafalaya Basin and the surrounding bayous in Patterson/Morgan City. For the most part, the logging equipment was on display. This was my favorite part because I like trees better than planes. I am in most of the pictures to show scale (not because I'm a camera hog!).


This is the oldest harvested cypress tree!



This is a rain cistern made of cypress wood. Cisterns were made from cypress wood because the wood doesn't rot. It was huge!


A log flipper for cutting the wood into planks.



Mortar and pestle made from cypress wood.



My grandfather made his own sawmill for planking wood and this piece of equipment reminds me of his sawmill!


This is a Navy plane on display in the front parking lot. Dave is standing by it.

That's it for now, until next time!

3 comments:

  1. I remember back a long time ago, when I was a kid, there was a lady that lived across the street from us and she had a cistern. That's where she got her water to drink and wash!
    Love,
    Dad

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  2. Good pics, Mary! I did not know about that place. My grandmother in Bunkie had a cistern also. What goes around, comes around!
    Good thing you said Dave was in that last picture - I could hardly find him : )
    Love,
    Mom

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  3. I loved seeing this pic of the cistern! My husband builds cypress cisterns, he has never done one that big. Thats awesome!

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