“We were ecstatic,” Hager said. “We are really hoping West Liberty will become a destination tourist spot. We are hoping it will bring more money and more business in.”
The collection is currently located in Danville, Va.
The collector, William Gasser, is an industrialist from the northeast and has collected military artifacts his entire life, according his spokesman, Jamie Shaffner. A West Liberty native, Shaffner is a logistics head hunter and has helped bring the museum to Logan County.
“We are ready to move,” Shaffner said.
However, the collection, now owned by the American Armoured Foundation, will come to the Miami Valley in three phases. The total cost of all three phases will be between $2 million and $3 million, Shaffner said.
Shaffner said the foundation has raised around $70,000 and expects to raise the rest through private donations.
“We have investors and people donating money,” Shaffner said. “It will be the people’s museum.”
The first phase will be to prepare the old Hobart building for the artifacts. Currently, they are housed in a 300,000-square-foot warehouse in Virginia.
The 95,000-square-foot former Hobart factory will need a deep cleaning and an expansion before any artifacts leave Virginia, Shaffner said. Phase one is expected to cost around $300,000.
Phase two will be moving the tanks and other artifacts from Virginia to Ohio.
Shaffner said he is awaiting a permit to have a special train ride, featuring veterans, through the country showing off the collection and eventually ending in Logan County. If he gets permission, he plans to call the train “Freedom Train.”
The third phase will be an RC tank battle re-enactment.
Shaffner is hopeful phase one and two can be completed by November so the museum can open for Veterans Day.
The West Liberty Gathering Place took the initiative to educate residents about the museum and organized a petition to persuade Gasser to send his collection to Ohio.
“I hope we get tourists to come through town to see what we have,” West Liberty Gathering Place owner Cindy Oelker said. “We are a unique village with our shops, and this will just add to the destination with the castles, caverns and museums.”