Pompton Lakes grapples with where to hold its history

POMPTON LAKES — Signs of the borough's rich history are all around.

Joe Louis Memorial Park is a nod to the famous boxer's connection to Pompton Lakes, where he trained in 1935.

Slow down when driving on Hamburg Turnpike and you'll see the Liberty Bell monument.

Then there's Terhune Memorial Park at Sunnybank, which is named for author Albert Payson Terhune.

If you know where to look you can find interesting artifacts, including the Cecil B. DeMille display at borough hall courtesy of the Pompton Lakes Woman's Club. The famous Hollywood producer and director spent much of his youth in Pompton Lakes.

There are a some other displays in the municipal building, and a 12-page Pompton Lakes Historic Guide is available on the borough's website for download. The library has a collection of historic photographs from the early 1900s. And the new Friends of the Pompton Lakes Library is planning a historic properties walking tour with the Historic Preservation Commission.

Most of the borough's historic artifacts are under lock and key, and apparently some items had been stored under someone's bed for a time.

The Historic Preservation Commission has a storage unit with boxes full of historic documents, photographs, newspapers, and more.

Residents can contact the commission to set up an appointment to tour the room. But the space is cramped and the items are mostly unsorted, and many aren't unprotected against dust. A portable light is required to see inside the room.

The Woman's Club has been collecting items since 1956 and they boast of a collection that dates back to the Revolutionary War. While the club continues to expand the collection for the community, it's also in storage, and is not readily available for the public to view.

A small collection of historic artifacts are on display in a room at the Pompton Reformed Church. The church itself is a designated historic site and is the oldest in the borough.

"Each church seems to have a historical group," said Mered Frankel, the chair of the Pompton Lakes Historical Preservation Commission.

The idea of a Pompton Lakes museum to unite these disparate collections has come up over the years. Most recently at a borough council meeting Mayor Michael Serra made some comments about the idea.

"It is a dream of mine at one point maybe to have a museum in town," Serra said. "We have a lot of history."

Serra said he marveled at an old phone book from 1929 a resident gave him. It lists all the businesses in the borough and their owners. He said many of the residents listed in the phone book have streets named after them now.

A space for a museum is not the problem. It's staffing it, said Frankel.

"We have had offers over the years for places for a museum," he said as he dug through some historic materials in the storage unit off Hamburg Turnpike. "The problem has always been lack of manpower. If you're going to have museum you have to have at least people who can open it up, even if someone calls you first...rather than coming into our 'museum' over here."

Frankel said the last time they were offered a space they discussed it with the Woman's Club and Boys' and Girls' Scouts, but it just couldn't quite come together.

"Yet, there's this interest," he said.

The preservation commission designates historic properties in the borough and creates historical plaques. They also collect.

"We keep collecting all these artifacts and stuff, but what are we going to do with them?" Frankel said.

Frankel said they would like to form a historical society. It would allow more flexibility to hold fundraisers, apply for grants, and run a museum. It would also let the group expand and for people to concentrate on specific areas of interest such as the history of railroads, sports, politics, and the fire department.

Ken Montanye, for example, is a Butler-based historian who is an expert on Reaction Motors Inc., which at one time developed rockets in Pompton Lakes.

"That's where the United States space program, it can be argued, started over on Wanaque Avenue in December of 1941," Frankel said. "Most of it was secret at that time."

The company kept getting chased from town to town after it tested its liquid fueled rockets, Montanye said.

Frankel, a local campaign manager and Republican Club chairman, has a collection of political artifacts.

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The Woman's Club also has a collection of dolls, historic letters, photographs, a cannonball, and a old prom bid.

Nancy Schwartz, the chair of the Woman's Club Museum Department, said she is always on the prowl for interesting historical items and regularly visits garage sales and solicits items for the collection from homeowners who are moving. She encourages other members to do the same and there is a budget set aside for the collection, she said.

"We pretty much will take anything Pompton Lakes related," Schwartz said.

The collection includes copies of old DuPont magazines and a DVD about the former munitions plant. She said one of the more interesting items in the collection is an antique stereograph, a precursor to the ViewMaster. There are also old shoes and a unidentified band uniform that Schwartz thinks might be one of the first school band uniforms.

The public can't access the collection but the club does loan out items to schools upon request. Some things from the collection were loaned out to Pompton Reformed Church's 200th anniversary celebration, Schwartz said.

"We definitely try to work with people in town," she said.

Schwartz said before the collection was put into a storage unit it was kept at the library. Then it was moved to the municipal building. Then Cardinal Frame gave them space in a room. Then they were moved yet again.

The club was asked to donate its collection to a museum in collaboration with the fire department about five years ago, but members had some reservations. They questioned who would operate the museum, and how the displays would be organized and cared for.

"Everybody has their little groups there," Frankel said. "If we could get them under a general umbrella then we might be able to go for a permanent basis, certainly to get out of [the storage space] and start going through and sorting."

Frankel said the commission has a good relationship with the Woman's Club who has two representatives who attend meetings. And now a relationship is being forged with the new Friends of the Library.

The library's photography collection can be viewed on computer. Images include the building of the library and a school in the early 1900s. There is also a DuPont collection from people working inside the factory, and the munitions.

Library Assistant Cherie Banker said she's not sure if the library's collection overlaps with the Historical Preservation Commission's collection.

Butler Museum

The Butler Museum is a source of inspiration if a local museum is to be formed in Pompton Lakes. It's something both Serra and Frankel pointed to.

That museum opened in 1977 after 16 years of discussion and planning, but not before some historical items were lost or destroyed in a fire. The collection, which was started in 1961 by a science teacher and historian R. Kennedy Carpenter, was housed in the library basement for a couple years before being bounced from one location to another. According to the Butler Museum website some items were even thrown out as trash.

The museum is located in a former railroad station purchased for $60,000 by the town, said Montanye, who is co-chair of the Butler Museum and Historical Committee. It has an annual operating budget of $10,000 which it receives from the township budget. Recently a grant was secured for major repairs over a four and a half year period that closed the museum.

Montanye has been regularly attending the Pompton Lakes Historical Preservation Commission meetings and offered to give members and the mayor a tour of the Butler Museum.

The collection in Butler is well organized and is varied. There is an extensive military collection, and on display is an early printing press and Ace combs and bowling balls produced locally at the American Hard Rubber Company. A Statue of Liberty exhibit includes pieces of the actual granite and copper used to build the statue and pedestal.

One of the newer additions is the Butler Museum Digital Access Center where visitors can access archived yearbooks dating back to 1919, and copies of local newspapers from the late 1800s.

Montanye said for Pompton Lakes once a building is secured display cases and tables need to be purchased. He said items need to be labeled in a sensible manner which can be a tedious process. There's a security system in place at the Butler Museum.

The Butler Museum is open at least three Saturdays a month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is available for group tours. Montanye said school classes, Scouts, and the Kinnelon Seniors are among some of the visitors. Visitors can take a self-guided tour or check out the exhibits with a guide.

Montanye said that if Pompton Lakes starts a museum it wouldn't have to be open every weekend.

"Maybe every other weekend," he said. "They can start out small. The stuff isn't doing anybody any good in storage."

Email: Agnish@northjersey.com