For whatever reason, today I thought back to a church I visited at Christmas time when I was growing up in Oklahoma City in the early 70s that had a huge Lionel layout set up for the season. I remember an educational program beforehand (I already went to Catholic school, I just wanted to see trains!
), I remember bleachers, and I remembered perhaps 4-5 huge O gauge loops. Feeling nostalgic, I went looking into the Oklahoma History Museum archives, did a quick search, and came up with a couple pics from the Daily Oklahoman to fill in the gaps. I was right about seeing trains at a church and the bleachers, but I was just a bit off with amount of track.
1975 - Cleaning trains in preparation for the "tinsel and toys" presentation at First Presbyterian Church is Mrs. Mary Louise Loeffler.
1972 - Dr. Dale K. Milligan arranges model trains on a mile of track for Christmas program.
1979 - Rev. Dale K. Milligan looks over his $25,000 toy train layout with a mile of track which is set up at First Presbyterian Church during the Christmas season.
Now it's time to start digging in the newspaper archives to see if I can find the stories that accompanied these photos. And beyond that, I'd really love to know where all those trains came from and where they ultimately went…
UPDATE: In digging around on Rev. Milligan, it appears he moved back home to a church in Pittsburgh somewhere after 1979. Wonder if the trains moved with him? Any Pittsburgh guys remember such a huge train display at a Presbyterian church in the 80s?
Also found another pic of some part of Rev. Milligan's collection (referred to in the caption as the "Milligan Railroad." However, as it shows what appears to be an HO English Stephenson Rocket, I'm just posting the link here. Googling "Milligan Railroad" came up empty…
All photos courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society. No copyright and licensing has been determined per the OHS. Fair use permission provided by the OHS.
redrockbill
