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Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times

Press play arrow to see photos and hear Milton Brockmeyer describe his scale layout of Pulaski, 40 years in the making, that now needs a new home. Watch larger version of the slideshow.

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See Brockmeyer's model town, in 360 degrees

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Museum plans

• 1945 Work starts on model town
• 1985 Model town substantially complete
• 1988 Pulaski acquires old train station from Norfolk Southern Corp.
• 1994 Raymond F. Ratcliffe Museum opens in train station
• 1998 Plans made for separate museum building to house model
• 1998 Pulaski buys former Maple Shade Shopping Plaza
• 1999 Architects propose converting former skate building in shopping center into a museum, which could also accommodate expanded New River Valley Fine Arts Center
• 2000 Plans expand to replace shopping center with 35,700-square-foot structure for $3.63 million
• 2006 Town officials hold public meeting on museum plans, get mixed views from residents
• 2007 Officials decide they cannot afford a new museum

PULASKI -- It took two men some 40 years to recreate the town of Pulaski, on a miniature basis.

"Forty years, but off and on," said Milton Brockmeyer, 91, a retired dentist who has the 80-by-20-foot scale model of Pulaski as it existed around the mid-20th century in the basement of his home.

He began working on it after returning home from Navy service in World War II, during which he had two ships shot out from under him in two days.

Wilmer "Willy" Ryan, who died in 2003, came up with the idea. Ryan was a projectionist at the Pulaski Theatre, which closed about 1990 but is now being renovated as a downtown community center.

"He's the one that said, 'Let's make a model of Pulaski,' " Brockmeyer said. "I guess, after he said that to me, he felt obligated to help work on it, you know."

They started their project about 1945. Brockmeyer built his house on Northwood Drive a few years later, including a basement large enough to handle the model he and Ryan were assembling.

Today, that model fills the basement, showing most of Pulaski as it existed around 1950 when the town was a railroad center. It is surrounded by rails for a number of model trains filling the outer parts of the display.

"Willy was unique in his way. He was building or making a topographical of the town," said his widow, Ethel Ryan. "I don't know if this is where all this developed or not."

In any case, Ryan did the layout of the town showing where all the buildings, Peak Creek and other landmarks would go. Over the years, he and Brockmeyer filled one 4-by-4-foot table after another with cardboard scale models of buildings that existed then, although some are not around now.

They painted each structure in detail. "We got the blueprints for most of these buildings," Brockmeyer said. "Everything was pretty much hand-made." Some of the model silos began life as beer cans.

The trains were models, but they have been detailed as well. "We got decals that you cut out and glued them on the side after you painted the car," Brockmeyer said. The various trains have some 170 cars.

Brockmeyer has been fascinated with trains since his father, who came to Pulaski from Wisconsin to operate knitting mills, gave him a Lionel train set when he was 4 years old. Brockmeyer still has that train, in an honored place in the basement.

The trains have been still for about 10 years, due to the potential fire hazard posed by dust and cobwebs. "I used to sit down here and run them and so forth, and watch them, but now the tracks have gotten so dirty you have to clean them," Brockmeyer said.

For years, he offered to give the entire model and trains system to the town. That offer helped spark long-discussed plans for an expanded town museum, since the Raymond F. Ratcliffe Memorial Museum could not come close to accommodating Brockmeyer's work.

The present museum is in the town's restored train station, which cannot be altered by an expansion without losing its historic registry status.

"I'm glad that we saved the station. There were some who wanted to tear it down," said Betty Kirkner, a daughter of the former mayor for whom the museum is named. She said it got its historic photographs and other items from founding industries and the town's rail past by soliciting citizens for them. "So that's how the museum got started. It belongs to the people," she said.

The town has much more it could display if space permitted, including 1909 and 1917 antique fire trucks, an ancient hearse and, of course, the Brockmeyer model.

Andy Graham, a former mayor who died in 2002, hoped an expanded museum might house them. "He had this dream of finding a suitable place. It would have to be a secure place," said his widow, Elrica Graham, who was instrumental in setting up a geological rock display -- along the walls of the Pulaski County Courthouse stairway, since that's where space was available.

The New River Valley Fine Arts Center has secured state transportation enhancement grants for a transportation-related museum that would hold Brockmeyer's model and other items.

The town has spent $316,668 of the $664,000 for which it qualified on museum plans and drawings.

"We need to be the keepers of the past, so that generations to come will know all the things I've learned," said Judy Ison, the center's executive director.

She and her predecessor, Michael Dowell, put together the applications for those grants, and she has another pending for 2007.

But now town officials feel they cannot afford to pursue the project due to pending repair costs for a regional wastewater treatment system and other expenses. Mayor Charles Wade has suggested making a DVD of the Brockmeyer model that museum visitors could see. Other council members have suggested displaying only part of the model.

"No, we'd like to keep it all together," said Wally Brockmeyer, the retired dentist's son.

Another question lingering over the on-again, off-again museum plans is whether the town would have to repay the part of the grants already spent if no museum is built.

If one is built, someone will have to figure how to remove Brockmeyer's model from his basement. It would have to be taken apart and reassembled, which would be a major task.

The model had kept expanding to the point where some of its background paintings covered the home's water heater. Brockmeyer hopes the heater does not go bad before the model can be removed.

"It was a hobby. I never liked golf," he said of his years of work on the model.

The Dalton Building was probably the last replica to go up, he said. Why did he stop? "I just didn't have any room to go any farther," he said.