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Transcript by otter.AI

In the 1970s, Keith Kittel took over managing the Winchester house. It's a big job largely because in the 50 or so years since Sarah Winchester had passed, the house had fallen into something of disrepair. The large number of visitors who were continually going through the House didn't help matters, he really is deserving of the credit of reestablishing the house as we know it today. Well, at least as of the two early 2000s, before the sort of explosion and turning into a bigger tourist destination. Adding multiple tours and different attractions such as a shooting gallery kill was very much about accentuating the house and the Winchester story, not to mention the advertising. But one of the big elements that came about during his time was the Winchester rifle Museum. Now calling it a museum is a bit of a stretch, it was really just two and a half rooms, but you would walk in, and there were display cases full of the rifles, dozens of them, the earliest rifles, the rifles that inspired the Winchester Repeating rifle, and all the way on up through the history of the product, including occasionally getting updated so that there were more guns from the late 90s and 2000s. They were very simply presented, they were on as I remember wooden holders with a red background, there was a low display case that had a couple of the handgun. But this is just the simplest display methodology show the thing that is on the wall, and let it speak for itself. Now, as someone who's been to the house during this period, the hundreds of times, I would sometimes even just visit to walk through the museum. Because it wasn't a particularly contemplative space. It was a little cramped, it was basically a sort of winding hallway. And the story of the Winchester rifle was there told almost completely without words, it was the progression of the gun shown very simply, no cutaways, no great, AV just simple presentation of object. Now a museum guy, I have a connection with museological technique. And this is as simple as it gets. And that, in a way, it's sort of like a minimalist music, though, you're seeing the same thing over and over, you're coming to appreciate the incredibly subtle differences. And though they were behind cases, you could get very close, you were intimate with the pieces, you could go in and see the firing mechanism on the outside, you could see the lever, the trigger, the barrel, the site was all right there in front of you. There are a few examples of historical rifles predating the Winchester rifle, which were cool. In fact, I think that the oldest rifle I've ever seen was in that might be one older I saw it the met in New York. But this was a clear, clean, well presented collection simple. Honestly, it didn't need anything else. This is the type of thing I'm sad to see going to the wayside. In the current version of the house I'm I asked what the space is being used for. And they said just storage and some setup space makes sense. It's a good spot for that. But the transformation of the courtyard, moving a concession stand out there, putting in the shooting gallery. And if you consider the courtyard to also run down that tea that runs away from the bathrooms towards the main portion of the gardens, the axe throwing, it's all fine. I do miss the arcade. But the idea of the house as a representation of just the Winchester story is sort of lessened by it. The other prominent museological type display, I guess, was the Winchester products museum. And I'll talk about that in a future episode, because that still exists to a degree, there's so much more they could do to tell the story of the rifle. And I do wish they would do that in a space that is in the house. In fact, there are a couple of places that would truly benefit from that. I've often said that the best use they could make of the what they call it used to call the million dollar showroom now it's where the AV display that tells the story, the Winchester story, the best thing they could do is to turn that into his to make that the sort of gathering point for the two are what they do now in the space outside but instead, move it to you have to walk in through the short past the short door down that little hallway. So you would gather in the million dollar store room and there, they could make a great display of those rifles, Winchester products, various things while you're waiting for your tour, in essence, do what they do in Disneyland, make the weight actually a part of the attraction. It's not a perfect idea. No, but it has its charm so stay tuned for that. First episode where I will be talking about the Winchester products Museum. A little bit about the 100th anniversary of the passing of Sarah Winchester a lot going on so I don't know when or how or why, but it'll be soon by my drums. Thanks for listening to widen class. I'm Chris Garcia.

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