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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2021
Museum looks to digitize Spruce Goose archives
asked for $7,080 to redesign an interpretive
pavilion at the site near the small Washington
County town of Helvetia.
By KEVIN HARDEN
Oregon Capital Bureau
If you think Howard Hughes’ plane the
Spruce Goose is big, then try this on for size:
more than 1 million pieces of paper — doc-
uments, blueprints, original drawings and
thousands of photographs.
That’s what the Evergreen Aviation and
Space Museum in Yamhill County holds in a
stack of shelves, fi le cabinets and cardboard
tubes related to construction of the giant fl y-
ing boat.
The museum hopes to get a state grant to
move the entire collection into a new research
facility, where it would be stored in more
archive-friendly shelves, photo boxes and
fi les. It also hopes to digitize most of the
collection so researchers and the public can
access it online.
“We don’t really have a proper archive,”
said Michelle Kaufman, communications
director for the Stoller Wine Group in Day-
ton, which owns the nonprofi t museum’s
property along state Highway 18 about 45
minutes south of Portland. “We want a place
where we can really showcase it. Where peo-
ple can come and dig through the records to
do their research.”
No matter house you measure it, Hughes’
H-4 Hercules is an engineering marvel. It’s
one of the largest airplanes ever built. It’s big-
ger than a Boeing 747.
The Spruce Goose is 218 feet long, has a
320-foot wingspan and is about 80 feet tall. It
weighed about 400,000 pounds and was pow-
ered by eight Pratt and Whitney Wasp Major
28-cylinder engines. It was built to fl y about
3,000 miles at nearly 20,000 feet, cruising at
250 miles per hour.
Nearly 700 banker boxes full of papers
and photos related to the plane’s construc-
tion arrived at the McMinnville museum in
February 1993 with the Spruce Goose after a
1,055-mile journey from Long Beach to Yam-
hill County. Since then, museum volunteers
have worked to put the documents in search-
able order that could be useful to researchers
and hobbyists interested in the plane and its
history.
“Before they came to Oregon, the fi les and
boxes were in warehouses that were reposi-
tories for everything,” said Lydia Heins, the
museum’s curator and collections manager.
“All of that paperwork was just sent to ware-
houses as a historical asset.”
Creating digital versions of the documents
and photos is a big deal. According to Nicole
Davis, supervisory archivist for Seattle’s
Museum of Flight, putting the fi les and pho-
tos online turns the collection into a global
gem.
“While physical preservation and catalog-
ing of materials is a necessary fi rst step for
Vision for the future
Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum
The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville is applying
for a state grant to help the museum digitize and open a new research
facility for documents related to the Spruce Goose plane.
‘WE’RE HOPEFUL THAT WE CAN FUND THIS.
IT’S THE FIRST PIECE OF A MUCH BIGGER
VISION FOR THE MUSEUM AND ITS FUTURE.’
Michelle Kaufman | communications director for the Stoller Wine Group in Dayton,
which owns the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum
accessibility, requiring researchers to come
onsite to your research center places a big
burden on researchers,” Davis said. “It limits
accessibility to those who can aff ord to travel
to the museum. Digitization opens up acces-
sibility to people around the world, and not
just academic or professional researchers, but
anyone who might be interested.
“Having materials available online also
increase awareness of the materials — now
the materials are fi ndable with a Google
search, whereas materials that haven’t been
digitized are much more hidden.”
Davis said about 500 people visit the Seat-
tle museum’s research center each year to
search documents and photos. The museum’s
digital collection gets about 80,000 hits each
year, she said.
Grants for several projects
In late April, Heins applied for $7,500 in
state funds through the Oregon Parks and
Recreation Department’s historic museum
grant program. The museum plans to match
that with about $6,200 to fund the nearly
$14,000 archive project. If approved, work
would begin in mid-July and probably be fi n-
ished by late April 2022.
Heins said it was the fi rst time the museum
asked for grant money to work on the Hughes
archives.
Thirty-one large and small museums
across the state applied for grants. The Ore-
gon Museum Grant committee met Thurs-
day to review and rank the proposals. Ore-
gon’s Heritage Commission will meet June 7
to approve funding for the top proposals.
Among the requests:
• Portland’s Architectural Heritage Center/
Bosco-Milligan Foundation sought $8,830
for a project to properly store architectural
artifacts.
• The Oregon Historical Society asked for
$8,000 to hire a cataloger who would work
in its Gresham facility to prepare the muse-
um’s Native American artifacts and database
for future tribal visits.
• Portland’s Oregon Heritage Rail Center
requested $7,500 to repaint the exterior of the
historic passenger rail car 105.
• Newberg’s Hoover-Minthorn House
Museum sought $800 to pay for an interpre-
tive center display system.
• Yamhill County Heritage Museum asked
for $9,200 to develop a virtual curriculum
highlighting the region’s pioneer history.
• Molalla’s Dribble and VonderAhe houses
sought $4,967 to repair and replace damaged
windows.
• The Five Oaks Museum in Hillsboro
Hughes’ gigantic H-4 Hercules (he did not
like the “Spruce Goose” nickname) fl ew only
once, on Nov. 2, 1947, for about a mile, 70
feet above Southern California’s Long Beach
harbor. It cost more than $23 million to build
in the 1940s (probably around $200 million
today) and spent most of its life in storage at a
Long Beach pier.
Hughes designed and built the plane as a
wartime transport to carry troops and material
across the ocean without fear of enemy sub-
marines. He began building it in 1942, using
wood laminate instead of aluminum, which
was in short supply.
The 1947 fl ight was a demonstration that
the massive aircraft could actually become
airborne. As World War II ended, Hughes
ran into trouble with a U.S. Senate over-
sight committee digging into wartime con-
tracts. The committee was concerned about
how the more than $22 million the federal
government put into construction of the mas-
sive plane was spent and wanted Hughes held
accountable.
By 1947, the Hercules was no longer
needed for military transport. Hughes had
spent millions of his own money (along with
federal funds) building the plane. Hughes
told the Senate committee that if the plane
couldn’t fl y, he would leave the country.
The large aircraft’s construction and mod-
ifi cations generated thousands of fi les, blue-
prints, change orders, drawings and photo-
graphs. Since they arrived at the McMinnville
museum 28 years ago, more than a dozen vol-
unteers have dedicated their time to preserv-
ing and protecting the documents.
The Hughes archives have been housed in
the museum’s theater building. The museum
plans to construct a new research facility in
its mezzanine, where it can house not only
the Hughes documents, but also some of the
nearly 40,000 artifacts — fl ight suits, models,
military medals and documents — it holds
related to the 150 aircraft and spacecraft in
the collection.
Work on the Hughes archives is being
done at the same time that the museum
presses ahead with plans for expanded edu-
cational programs, more exhibits and partner-
ships, like the one with the nonprofi t Carlton
Observatory to build a state-of-the-art facility
on the Evergreen campus.
“We’re hopeful that we can fund this,”
Kaufman said. “It’s the fi rst piece of a much
bigger vision for the museum and its future.”
The Oregon Capital Bureau is a collabo-
ration between EO Media Group and Pam-
plin Media Group.
Astoria
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nonprofi ts, volunteers and donors who help improve the lives of all Oregonians.
JUST A FEW OF THE 315 NORTH COAST
GRANTS AWARDED IN 2020:
NORTH COAST 2020
LOCAL I M PAC T TOTA L S:
Lincoln County Child and Family Day Treatment
Grants and Scholarships: $5.3M
The Harbor
Grants: 315
Vernonia Cares Food Bank
Scholarships: 138
Centro de Ayuda
Value of Endowment: $26.7M
Oregon Coast Council for the Arts
Volunteers: 68
Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
Funds: 90
Tumblewheel Studios
Astoria Arts and Movement Center
Amani Center
Community Action Team Inc.
- Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook Counties
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Consejo Hispano
Turning Point Community Service Center
Innovative Housing, Inc.
Toledo Public Library
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