Warther Museum, Dover, Ohio

Earnest "Mooney" Warther was the World's Master Carver.  Mooney loved things that lasted forever.  With only a second grade education, Mooney would become a master carver that can only be explained through his genius. Noted professors from Case Western Reserve explained the degree of skill in the creation of the pliers tree, one of Mooney's more unique carvings, would require an advanced degree in mathematics. His carvings are on display at the Warther Museum in Dover, Ohio.

The museum features Mooney's home, restored to appear as it was when he and his wife Freida started their life together.  Mooney had an extensive collection of American arrowheads and Freida's extensive collection of buttons and designed elaborate designs from them. As his house was quickly filling up with carvings and buttons, Warther decided to build the "Button House." 

Warther's famous wooden plier

To pay for it, Warther sold his famous wooden pliers for 5 cents a piece in 1936. He always called it the Nickel Building, and it was the best $250 he ever spent. His son Dave built the larger museum in 1963, Freida filled the space with her own collection and spent the next 30 years, between the ages of 60 and 90, sewing 73,282 buttons into her beautiful designs.

Mooney carved a collection of 64 extravagantly-detailed steam locomotives from ivory, ebony and walnut.  Early in his carving mastery, he learned how to make his signature pair of pliers from a single block of wood.

Engine No. 999

The fastest train in the world, while hauling the empire state express, May 10, 1893. It's speed was 112-1/2 miles per hour.

Great northern mountain type locomotive
Designed and built by Baldwin Locomotive Works 1930

Mallet articulated triplex compound locomotive, built for the Erie Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1913.

New York Central Lines Hudson Type Locomotive designed in 1927 to haul the limited trains built by the American Locomotive Company.

The 4-4-2 Atlantic Type Locomotive built for the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. It's speed was 100 miles per hour.

Dewitt Clinton - the first locomotive on the New York
Central Railroad - 1831

Mallet type, built by the American Locomotive Works for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1941.

Funeral trail of Abraham Lincoln 1865

Note the key in a window of Lincoln's funeral trail. It actually fits in the door lock on the train.

The General

The General was the famous locomotive built for the Civil War; built for the Western Atlantic Railroad in 1855.

The first passenger mocul locomotive built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for Exhibition at the Centennial Exposition 1876.

Sir Issac Newton's proposed locomotive 1680

A plier tree carved from one piece of wood - they all work

There were some mechanical things that Warther made, which worked with remarkable precision.

Quote of the day: "A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist's world." ~~ Hans Hofmann