Don Kirk is a relative stranger to Sweet Home. He?s also a man with big ideas.
If you?ve been reading the last two issues of The New Era, you?ll know that Kirk wants to establish an Oregon Railroad and Transportation Museum here in Sweet Home, using the old Oregon Electric Railway depot currently located to the east of the Sweet Home police station, behind McDonald?s, as its home.
Kirk, who has a background in TV and radio and is currently general manager of media for the historic California Theatre in Dunsmuir, Calif., is dedicated to this vision. He?s had other options for the museum in the past – one of them in Roseburg (until a landowner decided he didn?t want to cooperate). This, he says, looks like the best opportunity he?s seen for establishing a museum since he started working toward that goal in 1996.
The old depot is in ragged shape, but is structurally sound, unlike another in Perrydale that was falling down. It needs considerable work after some youngsters vandalized the inside, but there?s a lot of potential there, says Kirk and others with interest in the project.
If you?re new to the area or haven?t been paying attention, the idea of establishing a rail museum here is not new. In fact, the idea of using the depot for a rail museum isn?t new.
But it?s never happened and the depot has sat there for decades, next to a siding from the Albany and Eastern Railroad line.
Like many big ideas, there are hurdles that will have to be overcome for this one to fly.
One of the main hurdles is the need to relocate the depot. Lester Sales wants the depot moved by the end of the year.
The depot can be moved. Former Sweet Home High School shop teacher Ben Dahlenburg, one of the depot?s current owners, moved it to its present location 10 years ago with his students, using poles and a bulldozer.
Another potential hurdle is the fact that others have had interest in the depot in the past, people such as Dan Desler, managing trustee for the Western States Land Reliance Trust, which has plans to develop the property to the north of the depot?s current location.
Still another is that there will need to be cooperation from Albany and Eastern Railroad if as Kirk envisions, the local rail line can be used for the excursion trains that Kirk envisions.
One other, and it?s a biggie, is money. If Kirk and others interested in this project are to accomplish it, they will need to raise funds.
Lots of people have big ideas. Kirk says he already has tens of thousands of dollars worth of potential exhibits that he?s collected. He also has a high level of enthusiasm for things that run on tracks.
Kirk says he?s never had a business fail, so maybe he can pull this thing together. Someone needs to take the lead if Sweet Home is going to get a railroad museum and Kirk, at least, has shown that he has dedication to the project. We suggest that he may be the one to get it done.
But it?s going to take cooperation from local people who have similar visions. Various people have been talking about a railroad museum in Sweet Home for a decade or more but, well, we?re no closer to having a museum than we were in 1990.
It?s easy for people with strong views to put the brakes on ideas that have merit. We encourage anyone who might be inclined to be a roadblock to this idea to instead do what they can to give this museum proposal some impetus.
A railroad museum would be good for Sweet Home. It?s the kind of attraction that would bring visitors to town in the colder months when the lakes are not welcoming.
Kirk has big ideas, as we said, and Sweet Home could benefit from the realization of even some of those ideas.
Let?s do what we can to give him and other supporters of this project a chance to make something happen.