Armstrong Air & Space Museum

At a glance

Overview

The Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta tells Ohio's part in the history of flight and spaceflight and the life of Neil Armstrong, who grew up in the town, learned to fly at its airfield and in July 1969 became the first person to walk on the Moon. Governor James Rhodes proposed the museum during the Apollo 11 mission, the state pledged $500,000, and Wapakoneta-area donors answered with $528,313.55. Ground was broken in 1970 on farmland at the east edge of town for a building designed as a lunar base, a white dome ringed by mounded earth, and it opened on July 20, 1972, three years to the day after the landing, with Armstrong present. The collection includes the Gemini VIII spacecraft, Armstrong's suits, Apollo 11 artifacts and a Moon rock. The town itself stands on the site of Wapakoneta, a principal Shawnee town until the Shawnee were removed to Kansas in 1832; the museum is owned by the Ohio History Connection and run by a local association.

The name

Named for Neil A. Armstrong (1930-2012), the Apollo 11 commander, whose hometown is Wapakoneta; it opened as the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum. Armstrong had no formal connection with the museum and did not benefit from it. Wikipedia's Wapakoneta article traces the town's own name to the Shawnee settlement 'Waughpaughkonnetta', possibly from a Shawnee word meaning 'the place of white bones'; that meaning is uncertain. (source)

Native American history

The museum stands on the east edge of a town built on a Shawnee village site. Sutton's 1880 county history found few if any mounds in Auglaize County, though bones and stone implements from the three ridges crossing the county showed older occupation; no pre-contact site is recorded at the museum grounds. The French are said to have kept a trading post, Fort au Glaize, near the future town from 1748. Ohio History Central says Wapakoneta mattered to the Ottawa before the Shawnee made it one of their principal towns by 1798; by 1808 more than 500 Shawnee, Seneca and Seneca-Cayuga lived there, among them the Shawnee leader Black Hoof, who, the county's 1880 history says, stayed true to the peace treaties he had signed despite pressure from other tribes. Quakers ran a mission and built a grist and saw mill on the Auglaize for the Shawnee. Treaties of 1817 (Fort Meigs) and 1818 (St. Marys) left the Shawnee a reservation around Wapakoneta, and in the Treaty of Wapakoneta, August 8, 1831, they gave it up for land in Kansas. Black Hoof died in 1831 at his village, which Sutton's history places at present St. Johns, and the Shawnee left in September 1832. The town was platted on the village site in January 1833.

• Wapakoneta (Waughpaughkonnetta), Shawnee town: village, Present downtown Wapakoneta on the Auglaize River, 1780s-1832
• Quaker mission grist and saw mill: other, On the Auglaize at Wapakoneta, after the War of 1812 to 1832
• Shawnee Reservation at Wapakoneta: treaty, Parts of Duchouquet, Union, Clay, Pusheta, Washington, Moulton and Logan townships, 1817/1818-1831
• Treaty of Wapakoneta: treaty, Wapakoneta, August 8, 1831

Stories

Pennies for a moon museum

On July 20, 1969, Governor James Rhodes proposed a museum in Armstrong's hometown to honor him and 'all Ohioans who have attempted to defy gravity.' The state pledged $500,000 and Rhodes challenged the community to match it dollar for dollar. Businesses and individuals gave, and school children saved pennies and nickels for it. When Rhodes came back to Wapakoneta he was handed a check for $528,313.55, more than the state's share. The museum's own history says the town paid over half the cost of the building. (source)

A lunar base in a cornfield

The winning design treated the museum as a base on the Moon. The steel-reinforced concrete building was banked with mounded earth so it looks half underground, the way a lunar base would be shielded from micrometeorites and radiation. At the center sits a white dome, which on the Moon would have been a pressure dome; it holds the Astro-Theater, where films play across the inside of the dome. A straight walk lined with airport landing lights leads to the door, meant as a lunar landing strip. Ground was broken on April 16, 1970, on 16 acres of farmland at the east end of the city. (source)

A boy and an airfield

In 1944 Stephen and Viola Armstrong moved their family to 601 West Benton Street in Wapakoneta. There Neil, 13, read aviation magazines and built model airplanes. He took flying lessons at the Port Koneta airport and earned his pilot's license on his sixteenth birthday, before he had a driver's license. He graduated from Blume High School in 1947 and left for Purdue on a Navy scholarship. A state marker now stands at the house. (source)

The golden Eagle

Just before midnight on July 28, 2017, burglars picked the lock on the museum's front door. The alarm went off, but they had time to empty one exhibit before police arrived. They took a five-inch, 18-karat gold replica of the Eagle lunar module, one of three made by Cartier and given to the Apollo 11 crew by readers of the newspaper Le Figaro when the astronauts visited Paris in October 1969. Medals, coins and other gifts from the crew's world tour went with it. Nothing else was touched, and the museum's director called the lost pieces priceless for their history rather than their gold. (source)

Black Hoof and the Shawnee of Wapakoneta

Before it was Armstrong's hometown, Wapakoneta was a Shawnee town, and the aged Black Hoof was among the chiefs there. Sutton, who placed Black Hoof's own village at present St. Johns, wrote that he kept faith with every peace treaty he signed and would not join other tribes that urged him to fight the whites. The Quakers ran a mission there and, at their own expense, built a grist and saw mill on the Auglaize where Shawnee corn was ground free of toll. Sutton's 1880 history says Black Hoof died at his village in 1831, at a reported 110 years, and was laid out in a new blanket with his gun, tomahawk, knife and pipe while the tribe mourned in silence for hours. That August the Shawnee signed away their reservation, and in September 1832 about 800 people left for the Kansas River. Four months later surveyors platted the white town on their village site. (source)

Timeline

• 1748: The French built a trading post, Fort au Glaize, about half a mile northeast of the future site of Wapakoneta. (source)
• 1798: By this year the Shawnee had made Wapakoneta one of their principal towns. (source)
• 1808: More than 500 Shawnee, Seneca and Seneca-Cayuga, among them Black Hoof, were reported living at Wapakoneta. (source)
• 1817: The Treaty of Fort Meigs reserved a tract ten miles square around Wapakoneta for the Shawnee. (source)
• 1818: In September, at St. Marys, the Shawnee released all Ohio land except the Wapakoneta reservation, given in Sutton's history as twelve miles square. (source)
• 1831: On August 8 the Shawnee of Wapakoneta signed the Treaty of Wapakoneta, giving up the reservation for 100,000 acres of land in the West. (source)
• 1831: Black Hoof, the Shawnee chief who had held to his peace treaties with the United States, died at his village, said to be 110 years old; Sutton places that village, 'Black-Hoof Town,' at present St. Johns. (source)
• 1832: In September the Shawnee left for the Kansas River country, with D. M. Workman and David Robb as removal agents. (source)
• 1833: On January 22 and 23 Allen County surveyor John Jackson platted the town of Wapakoneta on the old Shawnee village site. (source)
• 1848: The legislature created Auglaize County from parts of Mercer and Allen, with Wapakoneta as its seat. (source)
• 1930: Neil Alden Armstrong was born on August 5 on a farm in Washington Township, near Wapakoneta, to Stephen and Viola Armstrong. (source)
• 1944: Stephen and Viola Armstrong moved their family, with 13-year-old Neil, to the house at 601 West Benton Street in Wapakoneta. (source)
• 1946: Armstrong earned his pilot's license at Port Koneta airport on his 16th birthday, before he had a driver's license. (source)
• 1947: Armstrong graduated from Blume High School and went to Purdue on a Navy scholarship to study aeronautical engineering. (source)
• 1966: In March Armstrong commanded Gemini 8, with David Scott, which made the first docking of two vehicles in orbit. (source)
• 1969: On July 20 Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon, and Governor James Rhodes proposed a museum in Wapakoneta for 'all Ohioans who have attempted to defy gravity.' (the museum's history gives July 20; Wikipedia's museum article says July 21) (source)
• 1969: The state pledged $500,000 if the community matched it; local donors raised $528,313.55, over half the total cost. (source)
• 1970: Ground was broken on April 16 on 16 acres of farmland at the east end of the city, and the lunar-base design was unveiled. (source)
• 1972: On July 20 the museum opened, with Neil Armstrong, Tricia Nixon Cox and Governor John Gilligan among those attending. (source)
• 1990s: In the late 1990s a garden on the south wing gave way to a Modern Space Gallery on the Space Shuttle era. (source)
• 2012: Armstrong died on August 25 at age 82, of complications from cardiovascular surgery. (source)
• 2017: Just before midnight on Friday, July 28, burglars took an 18-karat gold Cartier replica of the Eagle lunar module and other world-tour gifts from a single exhibit. (source)
• 2019: The museum added the Neil Armstrong STEM Inspiration Center, a classroom for school groups. (source)
• 2020: On August 5 the first Learjet 28, in which Armstrong and Pete Reynolds set five climb and altitude records in 1979, landed at New Knoxville bound for the museum. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Armstrong Air %26 Space Museum
• en.wikipedia.org: Wapakoneta, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Neil Armstrong
• en.wikipedia.org: Treaty of Fort Meigs
• en.wikipedia.org: Treaty of Wapakoneta
• armstrongmuseum.org: about
• ohiohistory.org: armstrong air space museum
• ohiohistorycentral.org: Armstrong Air and Space Museum
• ohiohistorycentral.org: Wapakoneta, Ohio
• ohiohistorycentral.org: entry
• nasa.gov: neil a armstrong
• remarkableohio.org: 9 6 neil armstrongs boyhood home
• archive.org: historyofauglaiz00sutt djvu.txt
• washingtonpost.com: one small step for criminals someone burglarized the neil armstrong air and space museum
• dayton247now.com: historic learjet donated to armstrong air space museum
• commons.wikimedia.org: Category:Armstrong Air and Space Museum