Becky Gillette – It’s hard to know where to start when describing the Golden Pioneer Museum at the junction of Hwys. 86 and J in Golden, Mo. From the outside, the plain metal building does little to advertise the fact that the inside houses thousands of treasures ranging from a 16,000 piece antique glass collection to a gem and mineral collection that includes such rarities as a 1,250-pound single point quartz crystal and a 4,200-pound cluster of quartz crystal, one of the largest known to exist.
Winfred and Lee Ona Prier starting collecting about 40 years ago, and quickly ran out of room at their home.
“We were putting things in our attic, and the roof was starting bulge a bit,” Winfred said. “That isn’t going to work. It was too much weight up there.”
The museum was born. Originally it was 90 ft. x 45 ft., but now it contains five rooms, including the latest room added about a year-and-a-half ago that is 92 x 40.
Through the years, Winfred and Lee Ona have bought out entire museums, such as the Trail of Tears Museum in Huntsville, Ala., which includes more than 10,000 arrowheads and spear points, along with other unique artifacts such as knives stolen from early settlers.
It is an eclectic collection. You never know what might be around the next corner. For example, there are 2,000 lunchboxes – which visitors often indicate is one of their favorite parts of the museum. There is an elephant’s tail, and 900 toothpick holders.
Unlike some attractions where the gift shop is bigger than the attraction, the Golden Pioneer Museum has few items for sale. And admission is free. Clearly, what the Priers enjoy most is just sharing their love of the beauty, history and awe of both natural objects such as a cluster of 29 fossilized dinosaur eggs and the artistry of glassmakers.
“I found out you get more in donations than if you charge $3, $4 or $5,” Winfred said. “A lot of people won’t go in if there is a charge. But when they go in and see it is such an amazing place, they will freely donate money.”
With five different rooms, it is a bit of a maze, as well as amazing. Children love playing hide and seek, as well as picking out their favorite treasures. The black light rooms are particularly appealing to children. Displays include glow-in-the-dark rocks from New Mexico and Vaseline glassware that has small amounts of uranium that give off an eerie green glow.
“We can turn 50 kids lose in there and they can’t do any damage,” he said. “Some museums, everything is out in the open and you can’t pick anything up. Ours is all behind glass.”
While some people may just happen to stop by while traveling through, for others the Golden Pioneer Museum is a destination.
“People drove up yesterday from Texas just to see it,” Winfred said. “Most people come in for an hour or so. But some people will spent two or three hours, get something to eat and come back and spend another two or three hours. It isn’t a museum you can walk through quickly and see everything.”
Asking him what is his favorite thing is in the museum is like asking a father which child he loves best.
“Everything in there is my favorite,” Winfred said. “I like glassware real good. We have more than a thousand pieces of cut glass. A lot of it is signed. We have a lot of colored cut glass that is rare and expensive. We have the world’s largest collection of glass butter dishes. We have 1,356 old butter dishes.”
He is particularly proud of his Indian artifact collection.
“And that is saying a lot because we have a bunch of other stuff,” Winfred said. “We have a covered wagon cast iron stove. I’m really proud of it. It is a really short stove used in covered wagons for heat and cooking. It is pretty neat.”
The museum has been open for about 23 years. Winfred retired four years ago, and now has more time for getting work done in there. He would like to have the collection better catalogued and labeled for visitors.
“We are in the process of itemizing what is in there,” he said. “It just takes time. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I ought to put this museum in Eureka Springs or Branson. If I wanted to make money, I should. But this is my retirement enjoyment. It is here in Golden and that is where I live.”
Lee Ona particularly likes their glassware collections including a lot of Carnival glass.
“Glass is kind of what we started out collecting,” she said. “All our collections are behind glass and that helps so much. The glass has to be cleaned once in a while. It isn’t real hard to keep clean. We put it behind glass for a reason. Winfred went to a museum once and it had signs that said. “Do not touch. Do not pick up.” But he couldn’t resist touching. It is tempting to reach up there and pick something up.”
Security is another reason for the glass display cases. Not everything is behind glass, but Lee Ona said they have had very little trouble with people stealing or tampering with things.
“We have been very fortunate,” she said.
Lee Ona said a large percentage of their visitors are locals from Branson and Eureka Springs, although it is also popular with tourists.
“Word-of-mouth is the best advertisement and we get a lot of that,” she said.
The Golden Pioneer Museum is open April 12 through October 31, Tuesday through Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. For more information, call (417) 271-3300 or goldenpioneermuseum.org.
This is a truly amazing, mind boggling museum!!