Fort Snelling Military Museum gets orders to move out
On Saturday, dozens of people took advantage of what may be their last opportunity to see the Fort Snelling Military Museum.
The museum is set to close as part of a national consolidation. The facility was created by volunteers in 1997 and has been an all-volunteer organization since then. They've reconstructed more than 65 military vehicles including tanks, jeeps, and personnel carriers used from World War II to the present.
Volunteer Cliff Seaburg saw many of the now-historic vehicles in combat during World War II. His job as a private first class involved working with engineers on demolitions in France and Germany under the direction of the legendary General George Patton.
"For me, it's hard to think that all this has deteriorated so fast and these volunteers — they've been working on all these engines, maintaining them and greasing them — and it'll all be for not," he said.
Phil Sampson visited the museum with his son on Saturday.
"It's just kinda sad that they have to move it," Sampson said.
Most of the museum's collection is expected to go to a military base in Alabama. Volunteer Ray Peterson said the move will cost as much as $750,000 — money, he lamented, that was never available to the museum itself.
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