MANSFIELD — Local aviation history is important enough to Scott Schaut to build displays and curate artifacts over the course of nearly a full year.
Schaut celebrated the official opening of the Frank P. Lahm Aviation Museum Saturday with local veterans and Mansfield Memorial Museum staff.
“There’s still more artifacts I could think about, but this is all I could fit,” he said.
The aviation museum is behind the Mansfield Memorial Museum in its own building at 40 Park Ave. West. The building was donated by industrialist Jim Gorman, a World War II Air Force veteran.
“I think there were a number of us who decided that we needed an aviation museum in Mansfield,” Gorman said. “Mansfield’s got quite a history of aviation — 98% of congratulations go to Scott. He did that whole museum by himself.”
The museum was named after Lahm, who also has the Mansfield airport named after him, because of his contributions to early American flight exploration.
Lahm was the first military aviator in the U.S. and accompanied Orville Wright on the second flight of the Wright brothers’ 1908 Wright Flyer. A photo of this pair is one of the many historical photos included in the new museum.
From his 25 years working as the Mansfield Memorial Museum curator, Schaut collected newspaper clippings, Air National Guard uniforms and antique airplane parts that he put in the new aviation museum. Other artifacts were donated by Mansfield residents and families.
He said he is still looking for donations of aviation materials including photographs, movies and physical artifacts. Schaut is setting up a television with rare aviation films he owns to add to the museum in about a month.
Edward Corley, board member of the Mansfield Memorial Museum, said he hopes people who visit the museum will become more interested in aviation history and recommend the museum to their friends.
“At this point, it’s a matter of letting the public know it’s here so they can realize the significance Mansfield had in the aviation field,” Corley said.
The aviation museum has the same hours as the Mansfield Memorial Museum — 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays.
