Station Museum Celebrates Port Moody Parks and Natural History

The Port Moody Station Museum celebrates Heritage Week this Feb. 21 to 27 with displays about local parks and an Antique Appraisal event on Feb. 27th. “We have created two displays celebrating park heritage. Working with the Port Moody Parks Department and Heritage Commission, we are putting together a display about the history of Port Moody parks at City Hall.”, explains Museum Manager, Jim Millar. “The other display, at the Station Museum, depicts the natural history of the Inlet and the impact of human development on the area.”

While the Station Museum maintains a large number of historical photos, there are very few showing families enjoying local parks over the years. Museum Coordinator, Rebecca Clarke requests, “It is our hope that long time Port Moody residents will be willing to loan us photos taken in local parks in years gone by. These images would provide a great compliment to our park history display at the Galleria.” The display will include information about local parks and features information about the parks creation and uses. Images of parks such as Old Orchard, Easthill, Westhill, Pioneer Memorial and Belcarra would be helpful. These parks have all played a significant role in the community but have very little historical documentation.

The Natural History display is on at the Station Museum now until the end of March. It features full sized taxidermy animals including a bald eagle, lynx and river otter. Visitors can learn more about the natural history of the Inlet and the effects of human settlement. The Park History display will be on display at the City Hall Galleria from Feb. 21 to March 6th.

For further information or to loan a photo, contact: Rebecca Clarke, Museum Coordinator at 604.939.1648 or pmmuseum@telus.net.

New Exhibit – Connected: A Modern History of Communication.

Starting this summer, the museum is hosting Connected, a new exhibit that details the many ways our society has communicated throughout modern history.

This exhibit, which will be on display until the end of October in our temporary exhibit area, features many artifacts dating back to 1890. Included are typewriters, radios, telegraphs, telephones, vintage magazines and newspapers, postcards, a television produced in Port Moody, and an interactive component featuring a typewriter and a telephone.

Also particularly informative exhibit features extensive display panels detailing the history, uses, and social impacts of each featured communication device.

Connected: A Modern History of Communication will only be on display from now until the end of October, so be sure to visit before it’s too late!

The Royal

One of the two typewriters on display in the Telegraph Office at the Museum. This one is a Royal – one of the three leading brands which dominated the market of the early 20^th century along with Underwood and Remington. I believe the typewriter in the image to be a “Royal 10”.

Some typewriters used for telegraph work only typed in capital letters as telegraphy was only done in capital letters to reduce the number of characters or symbols necessary. This is something reflected later in Telex services and early computers and computer printers.

Unlike the typewriters that many are growing up with today, for much of the 20^th century typewriter were manual and did not require electricity.

~ dwpenner sept. 20, 2007

Click Click Click Grind Kachunk

A Burroughs Adding Machine in the Telegraph Office of the Station.

Long before the day of Office Computers and Digital Adding Machines there were mechanical adding machines using cogs, wheels, levers, and gears.

This is an early adding machine which could add up columns of numbers keeping a list of the numbers and the totals. The Burroughs Adding Machine also could come equipped with a direct subtraction device. The Burroughs Adding Machine was known as a “blind” printer because the printer was on the back of the machine and not visible to the operator who would have to “lift a carriage on the rear of the machine to see what was printed.” The operator could read a running total on a register behind the glass front of the machine.

The operator of a Burroughs entered the number on the keyboard and then pulled and released a lever on the side of the machine, causing the entry to print and to be added to the running total. In order to print the total, the operator depressed the "Total" key and pulled and released the same lever. - Early Office Museum*

This Burroughs Adding Machine along with the typing float, typewriter, and telegraph were staples of the telegraph office. There were also calculators which could do multiplication and division, however they didn't create printed lists.

~ dwpenner sept 8, 2007

______________
*Early Office Museum
Early Adding and Calculating Machines
Antique Adding and Calculating Machines
http://www.officemuseum.com/calculating_machines.htm