AARON WILSON/JOURNAL

God and the Devil fight over the soul of a miner in a scene from "Boot Hill," the Western cemetery at Tinkertown.

Telephones & tiny towns
Two museums devoted to widely different missions

By Tracy Dingmann
Journal Staff Writer
We Americans just love to spend our precious leisure time gawking at roadside attractions. Here in Albuquerque, the crossroads of the Southwest, there's no shortage of them. Consider the Telephone Pioneer Museum, located on old Route 66 smack in the heart of Downtown Albuquerque. Or Tinkertown, just off the Turquoise Trail east of town.

TINKERTOWN WHEN: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily, including holidays, from April 1 to Nov. 1 WHERE: 121 Sandia Crest Road, just off N.M. 14 east of Albuquerque HOW MUCH: $2.50 adults, $2 seniors and $1 children 4-16. Children 3 and under are free. TELEPHONE PIONEER MUSEUM WHEN: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays-Fridays WHERE: 110 Fourth NW HOW MUCH: Suggested donation of $1 for adults and 50 cents for children.

Both are museums in that they display items of historic, artistic or scientific significance. But they are quite different in their missions.
The Telephone Pioneer Museum represents the Bell System's more than 100 years of operation and its thousands of employees who provide a service most now take for granted.
Tinkertown is a monument to minutia and the delightful wit of one man, Ross Ward, who has whittled an entire town of whimsical wood figures, buildings and animals.

Tinkertown
You could say Tinkertown was born in the 1950s, when as a young boy in snowy South Dakota, Ward dreamed of having his own Western town.
Ward's been working on his Tinkertown for 35 years now, and what he's accomplished is truly amazing. With his knife he's whittled a tiny saloon, toy store, general store, Native American trading post, hotel, blacksmith shop, pharmacy, cemetery, soda fountain and circus, all peopled with tiny expressive humans and immensely detailed backgrounds.
It used to be his solitary hobby, but he and his wife Carla opened it to the public 14 years ago.
Rooms and rooms of carved figures in display cases along twisting wooden walkways are the heart of Tinkertown. But there's also oddities like a sword display, an old boat that sailed around the world and walls made from thousands of recycled bottles.
The entire museum is dotted with little signs and homilies, some from great Americans like Mark Twain, and others from Ward, who seems pretty wise himself.
"Ideas are everywhere. Pick them like flowers," reads a Ward original.
Comments from enthusiastic visitors fill the museum's guest book.
"I want my house to grow up just like this!" wrote a visitor from Pittsburgh.
If you visited Tinkertown a few years ago, you should go back, because Ward has probably added something new.
"He's always embellishing and adding onto things," said his wife, Carla Ward.
Tinkertown grew from Ward's childhood dreams and his and Carla's shared love for the offbeat. They both adore roadside grottos and were particularly inspired by a fantastical creation outside Spring Green, Wis., called The House on the Rock. The rambling home built by Alex Jordan boasts the world's largest carousel and a room with more than 250 doll houses.
"My parents were great travelers, and they always paid attention to strange roadside attractions," said Carla. "So many times you're disappointed. We built one that we'd like to see."
Tinkertown is located at 121 Sandia Crest Road, just off N.M. 14 east of Albuquerque. It is open from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. every day, including holidays, from April 1 to Nov. 1. Admission is $2.50 for adults, $2 for seniors and $1 for kids ages 4 to 16. Kids 3 and under are admitted free. Call Tinkertown at 281-5233 for information.

Telephone Pioneer Museum
This little brick building Downtown holds everything you'd ever want to know about the history of the phone company in New Mexico.
The Telephone Pioneer Museum of New Mexico, on the pedestrian mall at Fourth and Central, is a repository of old telephone equipment, publications, historical photographs and employee remembrances and awards, most of which were donated by former employees.
If you scour the museum's library, you might find the photo album that your Uncle Frank's colleagues gave him when he retired from the phone company. You'll also find ancient New Mexico telephone directories and phone company newsletters that date back to 1917 and are crammed with news of the day.
On the second floor, you'll see the switchboard that operators in Columbus, N.M., used to alert townspeople of impending raids by Pancho Villa in 1916.
In the basement, you'll hear and see the story of Sally Rooke, a telephone operator who was killed in the Cimmaron Flood of 1908 as she desperately tried to warn all 500 residents of the town of the coming danger. She saved all but seven.
In the photo gallery, you'll see pictures of the rollerskating boys who originally staffed the telephone switchboards and the demure young women who replaced them. (The boys were too foul-mouthed.)
And in the hands-on "learning center," you might get to play with a copy of the clunky phone you used as a child.
The collection of artifacts gives the public an illustrated history of the Bell System and its subsidiaries Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph (also known as Mountain Bell and now US West), AT&T, and Western Electric (now Lucent Technologies).
But for the 70 former phone company employees who staff the museum on an entirely volunteer basis, it does more than that.
"We hope people have as good of feelings (about the phone company) as we do," said Susie Turner, who joined US West as a service representative in 1969 and retired as state staff operations manager in 1996. "It does a lot to instill pride."
The Telephone Pioneer Museum is housed in Albuquerque's original three-story telephone building, which has been restored to its original facade, circa 1906. The museum opened there last June after existing for years in various incarnations throughout the city, including at the old Mountain Bell Building at 625 Silver, the old Dillard Building at 201 Third, the Plaza Campana Building at 200 Third NW, and a cramped spot at 1209 Mountain Road Place NE.
Turner calls museum board chairwoman Gigi Galassini the "ramrod" behind the effort to secure the museum's current, much larger home.
"I guess I had a dream," said Galassini, who joined Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph as an operator in 1952 and retired from AT&T as a national service manager in 1989. "I'm from an Italian background and we never say no."
AT&T leases the building to the museum, which is funded by donations and admissions. The museum also has a gift shop which sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, commemorative pins and various odds and ends.
The Telephone Pioneer Museum is located at 110 Fourth NW and is open Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Guides are available. Admission is a suggested donation of $1 for adults and 50 cents for children.
For school tours or groups of 10 or more, call the museum at 842-2937.