Gus & Yia Yia’s ice ball cart is well known to generations of North Side residents seeking summertime refreshment. For decades, owners Gus Kalaris and his wife, Stella “Yia Yia” Bistolas, sold hand-shaved ice soaked in fruit-flavored syrups such as cherry, lime, and banana, as well as bags of popcorn and roasted peanuts, from their pumpkin-colored cart at West Park. Last year, Carnegie Science Center immortalized the iconic ice ball cart by adding it to the Miniature Railroad & Village®, where Gus and Yia Yia can be seen serving young customers.

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“The Earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied,” he said in 2009. “Small, shiny, serene, blue and white, FRAGILE.”

Collins may have been alluding to political divisions, but the fragility he referenced is becoming ever more apparent amid Earth’s changing climate.

Exploring the universe is about far more than mapping the galaxy and racing to see who can reach new destinations first; it offers lessons for how humans live and thrive on Earth. Prior space travel has yielded tools that enhance our everyday life, including phones, GPS navigation systems, and satellite technologies—space innovations that are now woven into the fabric of our lives.

“Our modern day is completely fused with space,” says Justine Kasznica, who chairs the Keystone Space Collaborative, an effort to develop the commercial space industry in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Kasznica sees massive potential for life-changing discoveries beyond our own atmosphere, and Pittsburgh is fast becoming an important hub for those efforts.

Researchers at Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine are looking at the benefits of zero-gravity environments in biomanufacturing. North Side-based Astrobotic Technology is developing a lunar lander capable of taking commercial payloads to the moon’s surface.

“The goal is not to answer all the questions, but to get visitors to ask a lot of questions.” – Jason Brown, the Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of Carnegie Science Center

Meanwhile, Carnegie Science Center is reaching beyond the moon to Mars, bringing the red planet to Pittsburgh with a new permanent exhibition opening in November.

From making life more convenient to extending our long-term survival on this planet, there’s much to be learned in the pursuit of space exploration.

“We want people to be inspired and excited about the next generation of space exploration, whatever that may look like,” says Jason Brown, the Henry Buhl, Jr., director of the Science Center, and vice president of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. “It doesn’t make the news when a rocket takes off anymore, but space really is the final frontier. Nobody should see it as ho-hum.”

Democratized Learning

Piggybacking on a recent and massive renovation of Buhl Planetarium, Science Center staff wanted to provide additional content to help guests explore space, crossing over from the digital experience in the planetarium to a more physical learning encounter.

The exhibition taking shape, called Mars: The Next Giant Leap, will “transport” visitors to a settlement on the red planet, providing a glimpse into how future residents might live and the challenges they’d face in that waterless and inhospitable world.

Entering through a pitch-black tunnel signifying their landing, visitors will traverse a Martian garden where settlers grow their food. They’ll get a look at the homesteaders’ common area with their personal effects. They’ll also have a chance to use remote-controlled rovers to search the terrain for evidence of water, as well as ponder questions that will shape the way the settlement grows and evolves.

“We didn’t want 101-level space content,” says Marcus A. Harshaw, senior director of museum experiences for the Science Center. “We wanted to tell a story with meat on the bone and some weightiness.”

Replacing the roboworld® exhibition in one of the Science Center’s largest permanent galleries, Mars: The Next Giant Leap will usher in a new era of more immersive and “democratic” exhibits designed to engage people of all ages.

Brown describes it as moving away from a top-down format in which the Science Center’s experts choose all content in favor of bringing relevant science to a broader audience of teens and adults through an inclusive design process.

To figure out what would be relatable and meaningful, the Science Center conducted surveys, brainstormed with high school students from Pittsburgh Public Schools, and had conversations with North Side community groups to see what they found intriguing about space.

“We didn’t want 101-level space content. We wanted to tell a story with meat on the bone and some weightiness.” – Marcus A. Harshaw, Senior Director of Museum Experiences for the Science Center

It turns out most people are fascinated by Mars. But kids will be kids. Harshaw notes that the surveys yielded some facetious questions—“Will there be standardized tests on Mars?”

“They said, ‘We hate tests!’” he says. “But they also got deep and asked things like, ‘Will Black lives matter more on Mars than here?’ and ‘How does health care work on Mars?’”

Harshaw adds that some North Side residents questioned why they should take an interest in roaming the galaxy when there are problems to solve in their own backyard. It’s difficult to care about other planets, for instance, while living in a food desert.

“We realized that’s the big idea,” Brown says. “The things we need to have in a settlement on Mars are the same things we need to have in a thriving society on Earth.”

Greening Up the Red Planet

Those anticipating a ruddy, barren landscape within Mars: The Next Giant Leap will instead find a lush abundance of life. For a settlement on Mars to be sustainable, the people living there would need to grow their own food. Floor-to-ceiling sprouting stations will illustrate how Martian settlers could grow crops using less water, fertilizer, and resources than we’re used to in Earth-based agriculture.

Those methods can be employed here at home as well, helping to address the needs of communities where fresh produce is a scarcity, according to Carla Littleton, animal and habitats manager for the Science Center.

Littleton will manage the new exhibition’s sprouting stations, using hydroponic and aeroponic growing methods to cultivate produce to feed the animals that call the Science Center home.

Littleton said their team is selecting hardy crops such as alpine strawberries, which are known for enduring in environments with cold temperatures and high ultraviolet light levels.

“We want to look for things that 
will survive outside of perfect growing conditions—things that can grow in more hostile environments, whether naturally or through breeding and genetic engineering,” Littleton explains.

Littleton and their team also are looking for utilitarian plants that serve multiple purposes. Plants that are both edible and provide beautiful flowers, medicinal plants, and vegetation that can be used as building materials as well as sustenance would be ideal additions to the Martian garden.

Beyond the challenges of farming without soil and with limited water, Littleton notes that the absence of pollinators and decomposers would pose additional hurdles. Worms can’t survive in the dry environment of space. Could cockroaches assist in breaking waste down into compost instead? Honeybees would perish on the trip to Mars, but native bees that overwinter for six months could potentially lay dormant for the better part of the trek through space, Littleton says.

“We’re rethinking the limits of what we can do [on Mars], and all of those things circle back to how we can apply them here [on Earth].” – Carla Littleton, Animal and Habitats Manager for the Science Center

From urban agriculture to growing in areas plagued by drought, techniques for growing food in the smaller, more water-efficient, and higher-light environment of Mars could benefit earthlings as well.

“We’re rethinking the limits of what we can do, and all of those things circle back to how we can apply them here,” Littleton says.

Space-Age Problem-Solving

From the physical challenges of building a settlement where there’s no atmosphere or water to more subjective uncertainties, such as how scarce resources should be divided and shared, the problematic aspects of sustaining life on Mars mirror many of the struggles we face here on Earth. And that’s exactly the point of Mars: The Next Giant Leap.

Sometimes, distance brings clarity.

“Science has proven there was a seismic change of climate on Mars billions of years ago,” Harshaw says. “You can look at Earth and see a lot of parallels there. What is similar? What is different? And what does that mean for Mars and Earth in the future?”

Tackling issues such as conservation, equitable distribution of resources, hunger, and education, guests will make decisions to shape the future of the exhibition.

Visitors will vote on how residents of Mars should handle scenarios that directly impact life on the settlement. And, each quarter, the Science Center team will add new features to a miniature model settlement based on the tallied votes. So, the model will reflect visitors’ values.

About the size of a two-car garage and similar in style to the Science Center’s beloved Miniature Railroad & Village attraction, the “mini” Martian landscape will depict the settlement as it grows—from the bare essentials of basic living quarters to the facilities needed for growing food and creating water.

“Will we add schools or jails? Soccer fields or fences?” Brown asks. “It will be what our visitors choose it to be. I haven’t seen this anywhere in any museum—it’s co-creation.”

STEM Stepping Stones

The exhibition yields a unique STEM education opportunity, too.

While STEM initiatives place a premium on science, technology, engineering, and math, Brown says the best STEM experiences encourage learners to practice skills seamlessly across various disciplines.

“The goal is not to answer all the questions, but to get visitors to ask a lot of questions,” he says. “STEM is about developing the tools to answer your own questions.”

A secondary goal is to pique interest in space careers and establish conduits to move interested students from the classroom to real jobs.

The Science Center and Keystone Space Collaborative are part of a triangulation of nonprofit, for-profit, and educational institutions working to nurture a fledgling space industry in western Pennsylvania and develop the workforce to staff it.

Around 550 businesses and institutions in the tri-state region are researching and developing space-related technology, according to the Keystone Space Collaborative. The Collaborative is leading a collective effort to secure the region’s place in one of the fastest growing and most recession-proof industries in the United States.

“The work we’ve done proves there is the beginning of a really strong community here,” the Collaborative’s Kasznica says.

By strengthening connections between research and development institutions and companies already involved in the space economy, and by creating a physical presence to represent the industry in Pittsburgh, members of the region’s space contingent want to forge a career-development pipeline that welcomes everyone.

“We want people to know you don’t have to be an astronaut or rocket scientist to be a part of the space economy,” Harshaw says.

“Accountants, writers, historians, HR personnel … there’s a role for you in the space industry and it’s not just in Cape Canaveral, Florida, or Houston. It’s everywhere, and there’s a large focus here in Pittsburgh.”

Mars: The Next Giant Leap is scheduled to open on Nov. 19, 2022. Lead support provided by Howmet Aerospace Foundation and PNC Foundation. Major support provided by Irene and Bob Bozzone, Henry L. Hillman Foundation, The Rossin Foundation, Arconic Foundation, The Philip Chosky Charitable & Educational Foundation, and The Betler Family Foundation, and The Dennison and Damon Families

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The Orlovits family is part of a group of 18th-century mummies uncovered just north of Budapest in two long-forgotten burial crypts.

The Orlovits family, discovered in their mummified state in a church crypt in 1994, is one of the most haunting and astonishing findings at Carnegie Science Center’s Mummies of the World: The Exhibition.

When most people think of mummies, they think of the ornate, wrapped bodies from ancient Egypt. This exhibition has Egyptian mummies intentionally preserved for more than 2000 years. But it also includes mummies formed unintentionally by a twist of the environment—bodies preserved in bogs, deserts, crypts, or ice. For this natural process to occur, circumstances must be just right—extreme cold, arid conditions, or lack of oxygen—to stop decomposition.

Mummies of the World challenges notions of what constitutes mummies and where they can be found. There are South American mummies, European mummies, mummies inside baskets, animal mummies, shrunken heads, a stolen mummy that was sold on eBay, bog bones, even a modern-day North American mummy created in a university basement.

Robert Brier, the Long Island University Egyptologist who co-created the modern mummy, says the exhibition fascinates people of all ages. “It’s a terrific show. A kid will stare at a mummy as long as you let them,” he says. “It’s a taboo. Kids don’t get to talk about death and this lets them do it. Adults are fascinated with immortality because a mummy is recognizable. It’s almost like they cheated death, and in a way, we are envious.”

Real people, real stories

The fascination with mummies, found both in museums and cheesy horror films, has deep roots. Two hundred years ago, British doctors sent invitations and even sold tickets to prestigious events where Egyptian mummies were unwrapped, says Margaret A. Judd, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. After the unwrapping party, “the mummies would be destroyed or perhaps lay forgotten in the doctor’s attic. Thankfully times have changed and we are more respectful of the past.”

In Mummies of the World, experts piece together the unique stories of 40 ancient people and animals through old records and modern technology, often challenging long-held notions of death.

A close-up of Michael Orlovits’ mummified hands, with a cross left intact.

Baby Johannes and his parents may have been lost to history had it not been for repair work on the Dominican Church of Vác in Hungary. When a crack was found in the church’s wall, a bricklayer pounded through, unearthing a hidden staircase that led to a crypt. Inside were 265 coffins, stacked from floor to ceiling. While those near the bottom contained only bones, the coffins at the top of the pile were preserved as mummies due to the cool, dry air circulating through the underground chamber. Everything, from their rosaries and the handmade stockings on their feet, was left intact. Scientists speculate that the oil in the pinewood coffins may have prevented the growth of fungi and bacteria, which cause decomposition.

Modern testing showed that Veronica, the 38-year-old mother of Johannes and two other children who died before the age of 2, suffered from tuberculosis. The highly contagious bacteria was a common killer in the Orlovitses’ Hungarian town on the Danube River in the 18th century.

“Veronica looks very peaceful here, but the scan shows that her legs were so thin she wouldn’t have been able to walk later in life,” says Kathy Leacock, director of collections at the Buffalo Museum of Science, which loaned mummies and artifacts to the exhibition. Johannes likely did not die of tuberculosis because his face is chubby, she says.

Scientists can perform noninvasive testing of mummies to piece together the narrative of how people like the Orlovits family lived. And CT scans can be rendered into a 3D image of a mummy. “This allows us to peel back the external wrapping and even the tissue to expose the skeleton that lies underneath,” says professor Judd of Pitt. “Those bare bones allow us to estimate the individual’s sex and age, and provide evidence of injuries, joint disease, and dental disease.” Bone and dental samples can offer clues on where someone was raised as a child and what they ate as an adult.

In addition to modern technology, dusty church records contained a wealth of historical information about those found in the crypt. Veronica’s husband, Michael Orlovits, was a miller who died at age 41. The three family members are dressed in recreations of their burial outfits.

“A kid will stare at a mummy as long as you let them. It’s a taboo. Kids don’t get to talk about death and this lets them do it.”
– Robert Brier, Long Island University Egyptologist

Baron von Holz, a 17th-century nobleman mummified naturally due to the environmental conditions of the family crypt, found still wearing his leather boots.

In another room of the exhibition, the mummy of Baron von Holz lies in a display case, wearing luxurious, knee-high brown boots—the only remnant of the sartorial splendor of the 17th-century German aristocrat. The soles of the boots are pristine. “You can see that they were never used in life, and they were procured for his final resting place,” Leacock says. “Researchers speculate that they might have had buckles on them at one time.”

History tells us that baron and his relatives hid inside Sommersdorf Castle in southern Germany during the bloodshed of the Thirty Years’ War. They were later buried in the family crypt at Sommersdorf, until Napoleon’s forces took over the castle and found them in a mummified state. The vault was opened and resealed several times before descendants of the family recently gave permission for five of the mummies to be studied and exhibited.

The usefulness of death

Kids who stare in wonder at mummies often ask if they can touch. The answer is a definitive no. But Mummies of the World provides visitors with the next best thing: a touch display that provides a realistic representation of what mummy parts actually feel like. For example, mummy skin feels like sandpaper, while the bones are very squishy and pliable.

The show also features mummy bundles—bodies that were curled up in the fetal position, wrapped in long grass or reeds, and preserved inside baskets or textiles. The basket mummies on display are most likely from the highlands of Cuzco, Peru. Leacock notes that the people who prepared mummy bundles occasionally put a fake head on top because the real heads were sometimes looted—part of the sordid history of mummy abuses and body-part sales. Other mummy bundles are wrapped in textiles, such as the young South American girl on display, the linen visible beneath her mummified body.

A mummy bundle preserved inside a basket.

Another display case holds shrunken heads, the result of a gruesome ancient ritual performed by the Jívaro Indians of northern Peru and southern Ecuador. Tribe members would kill their enemies, shrink their heads, and wear them around their necks as trophies. In addition to human heads, the exhibition shows a shrunken sloth head that apprentices practiced on before advancing to human heads.

A war trophy known as a shrunken head.

While mummies have been abused and sold on the black market throughout history, they’ve also been preserved for medical training. Mummies of the World contains some of the famous Burns Collection, medical mummy parts from early 19th-century Scotland.

While he didn’t record his methods, in the early 1800s physician Allen Burns of Glasgow’s College Street Medical School devised new methods of preserving human specimens. Researchers believe he used an embalming solution containing arsenic, mercury, nitrates, oxides, and other chemicals.

A medical mummy from the 19th-century Burns Collection.

When Burns died in 1813 at age 32, his first assistant, Granville Pattison, bought the collection and eventually migrated to the United States. He later sold the collection to the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Most of the 100 anatomical specimens remained safe and secure at the university, but a few disappeared mysteriously. On October 10, 2006, a mummy of a child from the Burns Collection was listed on eBay under the category of “medical specimen,” and bidding reached $500. The item was pulled from the site after police arrested a woman from Port Huron, Michigan, for trying to sell it.

Despite its journey into the black market and the less-than-ideal storage conditions of a police station, that child mummy remains in pristine condition, proving Burns clearly knew how to preserve his specimens.

“To see a dead body that looks almost perfect, it throws us for a loop. As long as the conditions are right, it can happen anywhere.”
– Cassandra L. Kuba, professor of anthropology at California University of Pennsylvania

A modern-day mummy created by scientists in 1994 using the same methods as ancient Egyptians.

So does Bob Brier, known as “Mister Mummy” because he co-created the first modern-day ancient mummy using secrets left behind by the Egyptians. “I was reading things on Egyptology, and most of the people writing about it didn’t know what they were talking about,” he says. “There were loads of things we didn’t know about the mummification process. The only way to find out was to do it.”

In 1994, he collaborated with anatomist Ronald Wade of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (home to the Burns Collection) to preserve a male body that was donated to science. Brier traveled to Egypt and dug up 400 pounds of natron, a drying agent similar to salt and baking soda, on the shore of the Nile. He also bought frankincense, myrrh, and other spices from the local market, as well as obsidian blades and other tools.

Back at the University of Maryland, the two researchers replicated the conditions of an ancient Egyptian ibu tent, purifying the walls with palm wine and water before covering the body with natron.

Brier debunked the common theory that the ancient Egyptians pulled the brain out through the nasal cavity, chunk by chunk. Instead, he says, they liquified the brain by twirling a wire hook like a whisk and then turning the body on its side and letting it flow out. Using an obsidian blade as their scalpel, they then cut a 4-inch incision through the abdomen and removed the liver and other organs. The pair also put frankincense and other spices in the cavity to neutralize the odor.

For the next 70 days, they left the body alone. In the end, they discovered the process worked and wrapped it in linen. Twenty-five years later, the modern mummy, dubbed MUMAB for Mummy of the University of Maryland at Baltimore, has not decomposed.

“I felt a real kinship with the ancient embalmers,” says Brier.

An Egyptian cat mummy dating to the early Roman period, when felines were ritually embalmed in a lengthy process using salt and various resins.

Other modern mummies can be found locally, says Cassandra L. Kuba, professor of anthropology at California University of Pennsylvania. At the request of Carnegie Science Center, she and five of her undergraduate students brought some naturally mummified animals to show visitors. Among the local finds are a chicken found behind farm equipment and a toad found on railroad tracks.

“To see a dead body that looks almost perfect, it throws us for a loop,” says Kuba. “As long as the conditions are right, it can happen anywhere.”

Mummies of the World at Carnegie Science Center is presented by Agora Cyber Charter School and sponsored by Baierl Subaru.

Ancient Egyptians: A lust for life, even after death

More than 2,000 years after his death, Nes-Hor retains the regal air of someone who tended to the gods. He once worked inside the Temple of Min in ancient Egypt, helping to clothe, clean, and make offerings to the statues of the deities. Now the mummified body of the ancient priest is on display in Mummies of the World: The Exhibition at Carnegie Science Center.

Adjacent to him is the mummy of Nes-Min, another priest in the Temple of Min from the Ptolemaic period, dating from 305 to 30 BCE. The pair not only bathed the gods but likely themselves, sometimes three or four times a day, all in hopes of purifying their spirits for the afterlife.

Because the exhibition, on view through April 19, 2020, has a world of mummies to showcase, Egyptian mummies and artifacts are kept to one room. But those who want a more in-depth look at both the mystery and vibrancy of everyday life in ancient Egypt society can head to the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

This longtime visitor favorite includes a rich collection of mummies and hundreds of artifacts dating to 3100 BCE. Its centerpiece, a reconstructed tomb, contains the mummy and coffin of an Egyptian chantress of Amun, dating to 1069 BCE. Despite Andrew Carnegie’s fascination with dinosaurs, in 1896 the temple singer from Dynasty 21 was actually the first scientific artifact he purchased.

The hall also showcases the lesser known but no less fascinating coffin of Heramenpenaf, a wab priest at the temple of the deified Amenhotep I, who was believed to be supervising the construction of the tomb of Ramesses XI.

“He was a middle-of-the-road priest, not at the bottom, not at the top. He would do general rituals at the temple,” such as cleaning, cooking, taking care of livestock, and preparing for festivals, says Erin Peters, an Egyptologist and research associate at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The outside of the coffin is damaged by marks believed to be made by an ax. Some of the gold is missing from the outside, leading to speculation that thieves looted it.

In ancient Egypt, priests served a different role than the religious leaders of today, Peters explains. They didn’t interact with worshippers or preach during services but tended to the temple and statues of the gods. “There were many priests in each temple, and they kept building more and more temples,” she says. “Priests had many different roles. Some were butchers. Some were doctors. Others took care of the cult statues, feeding them and taking the clothes of the deities off and putting them back on.”

Then there were the funereal priests who presided over the mummification and burial of the dead, an important ritual for the Egyptians. After death, most of the organs were removed and the bodies were covered in natron, a natural drying agent made of salt and sodium bicarbonate, and then wrapped in linen. The wealthy were buried with handcrafted masks in elaborate coffins, painted with ornate scenes and inscriptions. The scenes, displayed on coffins and coffin fragments, were supposed to protect the ancient Egyptians and guarantee their immortality.

“People think of Egyptians as fascinated by death because of the amount of time and energy they spent on it,” Peters says. “But really they were obsessed with life. They saw it as continuing life on Earth, but just a little better. They thought you had to have a body to get to the afterlife.”

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Jacob arrived in Pittsburgh in 1868 and immediately got to work. His first job was peddling goods along Carson Street in East Birmingham, today’s South Side. Labor- intensive and far from glamorous, it served the purpose. Within a year he was able to send for Isaac. Then the pair, having opened a tailor shop in the same neighborhood, sent for Morris (in 1872) and finally Henry (in 1876).

Once reunited, the four brothers would go on to build an enduring legacy that still stands today. The story of Kaufmann’s Department Store is the story of America at the turn of the century: how one family’s aspirations and drive to succeed could capture the heart and imagination of an entire city.

That’s exactly the spirit that Patty Everly, curator of historic exhibits at Carnegie Science Center, brings to life as the original downtown Kaufmann’s building takes up permanent residence within the Science Center’s popular Miniature Railroad & Village^®.

Comprised of historically accurate and meticulously crafted replicas—including fan favorites such as Allegheny Observatory, the Crawford Grill, Fallingwater, and Forbes Field—the Miniature Railroad & Village recreates scenes that capture the essence of western Pennsylvania from the 1880s through the late 1930s.

A replica of Kaufmann’s Grand Depot or Big Store, which opened in 1885.

This year’s addition is particularly special because it coincides with the iconic exhibit’s 100-year anniversary. It’s no wonder Everly felt some pressure.

“We really wanted something grand for the anniversary,” she says, “and we thought of Kaufmann’s. It’s architecturally a unique building, and it tells the history of Jewish immigrant merchants who created this magnificent company that is still so deeply ingrained in our culture.”

Everly and her team did their homework, seeking out old photographs and archival records from Heinz History Center and various newspapers. Using that material as a guide, they 3D printed an as-close-to-perfect-as-possible scale model.

“It’s architecturally a unique building, and it tells the history of Jewish immigrant merchants who created this magnificent company that is still so deeply ingrained in our culture.”

– Patty Everly, curator of historic exhibits at Carnegie Science Center

With the replica in hand, the finishing touches—sourcing the appropriate dollhouse furniture to populate the windows, for instance—became the priority. “In the Miniature Railroad & Village’s world,” Everly explains, “it’s always summer in the urban area, so although we won’t have holiday decorations, you will see the windows full of toys, flowers, garden furniture, and people.”

Dubbed the Grand Depot or Big Store, the downtown Kaufmann’s building officially opened its doors at Smithfield Street between Fifth Avenue and Diamond Street, now Forbes Avenue, in 1885.

As entrepreneurs, the Kaufmanns were larger than life. And so, too, was their shop. There were display windows decorated with changing fashions for the changing seasons. And atop the five-story structure—right at the corner of Smithfield and Fifth—was a turret on which perched a 25-foot-tall bronze Lady Liberty. She was not alone. The Goddesses of Justice and Commerce also hovered above the busy street.

The statues packed a huge wow factor and also symbolized the Kaufmanns’ approach to doing business.

“Instead of haggling,” Everly says, “Kaufmann’s had price tags on their merchandise, so you knew up front what things cost. That was new. And because Pittsburgh was a city of immigrants, they had interpreters in the store to help with customer service.”

But perhaps the store’s most memorable feature was its clock. Back then, it was free-standing and quickly became its own cultural touchstone. “Meet me under the Kaufmann’s clock” was as much a part of the local lexicon as Pittsburghese.

As the brothers acquired more property, they ultimately opted to demolish the original store. They unveiled a new, 13-story building in 1913, but much to the public’s dismay the clock was noticeably absent. The outcry came fast and loud. Wasting little time, they set things right. Later that same year, Kaufmann’s added a 2,500-pound bronze clock onto its façade, and there it remains.

The early 1900s marked the golden age of shopping for the city’s Golden Triangle. Competition between Kaufmann’s, Boggs & Buhl, Frank & Seder, Gimbel’s, and Horne’s was fierce. But all have long since closed up shop.

Fast forward to 2019, and Kaufmann’s Grand on Fifth —as the building is now known—has welcomed its first tenant, Even, a 150-room health-and-fitness themed hotel.

But some things never change. So, whether it’s on Smithfield Street or in the Miniature Railroad & Village, Pittsburghers can still meet at the Kaufmann’s clock.

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These 3D scenes—all pint-size but amazingly lifelike—play out at Carnegie Science Center’s Miniature Railroad & Village, a small-scale world that has been a cultural touchstone for generations of Pittsburghers for nearly a century.

This model, dated to 1948, by Miniature Railroad founder Charles Bowdish was inspired by his own childhood home. Seated in a rocker on the porch are models of his mother and older brother, Stean.

The 83-foot-by-30-foot display turns 100 later this year, and for its legions of fans it’s been a place of constant discovery. No detail is too small.

For decades, visitors making their way around the large, rectangular platform have seen a woman rocking her child on a porch. Less obvious is the cat sprawled out, its tail flipping under the chair. Just before the rocker comes down again, the cat whips its tail out of harm’s way.

Across the length of the exhibit, in a scene of freshly fallen snow, a man relieving himself in an outhouse is reading an itsy-bitsy Sears catalog, something only an eagle-eyed observer could spy as the latrine door swings open ever so briefly.

“The closer you look and the more you visit, the more you discover.”
– Patty Everly, the Science Center’s curator of historic exhibits

These slice-of-life details come alive through 105 animations, each powered by their own miniature motors. In one scene a man is chopping wood, in another a man washes his back with a brush in an outdoor bathtub. At the miniature Forbes Field, two motors, cranks, cams, and bevel gears give the batter’s swing its natural look.

“The closer you look and the more you visit, the more you discover,” says Patty Everly, the Science Center’s curator of historic exhibits and the display’s creative caretaker since 1991. “No matter how often people visit, they find things that they think are new, but most times they just didn’t notice them before. There is a lot to see.”

Telling history in miniature

It helps that for two months each fall, in addition to adding a new model, Everly and her small team of mostly part-time staff and volunteers clean and give a facelift to the scenes that capture the spirit of western Pennsylvania from the 1880s through the late 1930s—all in miniature. Things—large and small—are, in fact, constantly changing.

Recently, the team refreshed the rolling hills of the countryside. On one farm, pigs escape their pen. In another sprawling scene is a reconstruction of Manchester Farm in Avella, which dates to 1815. “That goat standing on the stone wall,” explains Everly, “I saw one just like it when I was there photographing the farm, and we wanted to include that level of real detail. It’s been a continuously active farm,” she continues, “and owned and lived in by the same family for the last 200 years. It’s an amazing piece of history.”

Nearby, visitors can now peek inside the windows at the hustle and bustle of a miniature general store, blacksmith shop, and other 20th-century Main Street businesses built by the exhibit’s founder, Charles Bowdish. By moving the models closer to the edge of the display and adding interior lights, that corner of the exhibit—not far from where kids can step up and blow the train whistle—now draws more oohs, aahs, and eager finger pointing, especially from pint-size onlookers who have the perfect vantage point.

Outside of the model of the church where Bowdish’s parents were married, Everly has created a scene where a husband and wife, greeted by family and friends, spill out of the church. The special moment is tucked away on a side street and can be easy to miss. Discovering it is a little like finding hidden treasure. And people do notice, says Nicole Wilhelm, the exhibit’s full-time program assistant. At one time, the church included a cemetery instead. “People still ask about it,” says Wilhelm. “Visitors definitely have their favorite moments and scenes.”

In 2016, when Everly built her first model by way of 3D printing, she also ushered the exhibit into the nuclear age with the addition of Westinghouse Electric’s atom smasher. The bulb-shaped replica of the Van de Graaff accelerator duplicates a distinct part of the Forest Hills skyline, circa 1937. On either side of this unique piece, she placed a pair of lesser-known, not-to-be-missed additions: a 1938 billboard for the American Bantam Car Co., the Butler, Pennsylvania, maker of what became the Jeep, and the Rudy Bros. Co. Stained Glass building. Peer inside the glasshouse—replicated in the spirit of the scores of glasshouses that once lined Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood—for a glimpse into the region’s first industry, and one that once earned the city the moniker America’s Glass City.

Everly goes to great lengths to make what’s believed to be the oldest model train display in the country as accurate and lifelike as possible. Part historian, part artist, and part architect, she built the outfield wall of the miniature version of Forbes Field from a ground-up brick salvaged from the real thing. She used chunks of sandstone to create the outer walls of the stunning replica of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a mammoth challenge that took her five months to complete. Everly says she didn’t want to use commercial model builder or modeling stone because it was too even and artificial-looking. The solution came one day when she was walking around her old farmhouse in Cecil Township. Everly noticed that the big flat sandstone on her sidewalk was peeling. With a putty knife, she flicked off the thin layers of rock and cut them into strips that would form the Fallingwater’s stonework.

“Patty’s a rock star,” Wilhelm says of Everly. “She is so talented!”

With a master’s degree in public history, Wilhelm, a Lancaster native, was drawn to the historic roots of the exhibit. But she admittedly has a lot more to learn about the artistic side of the job, a specialty of Everly’s, who grew up in a rural landscape of farmhouses and a railroad that crossed in front of her own driveway, inspiring her art from a young age.

Nicole Wilhelm, holding one of the Miniature Railroad’s 105 animated parts. Beneath its base is its own tiny motor.

Even the Miniature Railroad’s murky river reflects the real world. While the water that flows through the exhibit, about three inches deep, comes out of the faucet, Everly made sure to paint the basin a custom hue so it matches the actual color of the Ohio River, Wilhelm says.

“It’s adding shadow, texture, and depth that makes the scenes look so realistic,” Wilhelm continues, pointing to the rolling hills of the countryside as the light bounces off of the green pasture. “There’s a lot to the artistic side of the display. I’m still learning that part of it, and Patty is an amazing teacher.”

Going willingly down the rabbit hole

Everly also has research chops. The newest series of models, added in 2018, is a collection of seven homes (one still under construction) known as Cement City, a worker housing complex in Donora, Pennsylvania, designed by Thomas Edison (yes, that Thomas Edison). Edison wanted to eliminate slum-like conditions and create safe, affordable homes for poorer workers. “He wanted to make it attractive to give the workers dignity,” explains Everly. “But it was a failure. He never did reduce the costs of building a frame house.”

The cement houses were painted in multi-colored pastel shades, an unusual choice for that era, and Everly, always the perfectionist, wanted to get the colors just right. Historical records referenced a color called “Chevy Chase” for at least one of the homes. So she called Harvard University’s pigment library, which keeps the largest collection of rare and historic pigments in the world, but even they didn’t know. “I called people around the globe. My staff thought it was comical how far I went down a rabbit hole.” She never found the exact hue, but she painted the houses as they are listed in historic records: cream, buff, slate gray, and she chose a green for Chevy Chase.

Everly and her team first selected five of the original floor plans from blueprints on loan from the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum to reproduce the houses’ structures.

Exhibit technician Andrew Spate then added prairie-style pitched roofs, arts-and-crafts windows, porches, and trellises to flesh out the era’s aesthetic. And Everly applied the acrylic paint with a sand base to replicate the cement texture of the houses’ walls. To really set the scene: out front a block party is in full swing.

“Over the decades, we realized that we could use this superpower for good—we could entertain and educate, and we became laser-focused on a mission to tell the big story of Pittsburgh and our region and its place in history.”
– Patty Everly

To recreate the suffragette parade that marched along Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh on May 2, 1914, Everly (who worked on the project with volunteer Charlene Beck) dug up the microfilm at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and supervised an intern who conducted additional research supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.

The lead car in the parade, driven by Jennie Bradley Roessing, pulls a tiny float with a model of the Liberty Bell and a sign that reads, “This Liberty Bell will not ring until women win the right to vote.” Roessing drove the car to each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties as she fought for the 19th Amendment.

The suffragette parade, modeled after the actual parade on Grant Street on May 2, 1914.

A visitor pointing to the suffragette parade might also be lucky enough to get an extra history lesson from Bob Tinkham, a part-time presenter at the Miniature Railroad and a fast friend to curious visitors. Sometimes he tells a story about Mary Flinn Lawrence, a prominent suffragette who marched in the same parade. “She got tired of carrying the banner, so her husband carried it,” says Tinkham. “People on the sidewalk started laughing.” Her husband figured out why there was laughter when he looked down at the sign. “It said, ‘If a man can vote, why can’t I?’”

For Everly and team, the smallest of details, the personal accounts—they’re all part of bringing to light the region’s past.

“Over the decades, we realized that we could use this superpower for good—we could entertain and educate, and we became laser-focused on a mission to tell the big story of Pittsburgh and our region and its place in history, how we influenced and impacted the country and the world,” Everly says, “especially when it came to technology, engineering, and innovation.”

Past meets present

Charles Bowdish didn’t have today’s technologies at his fingertips when he started what would become the Miniature Railroad & Village a century ago in his home in Brookville, Pennsylvania. What he did have was an artist’s eye, a master craftsman’s skill, and a storyteller’s flair for captivating an audience.

He was the best man in his brother’s wedding, and after the ceremony Bowdish invited guests to his home, where he had built a model of Brookville’s Main Street in his living room as a means of entertainment. One guest asked if he could bring his friends by later, and by the end of the day 600 people had tramped through the house.

By 1954, more than 300,000 people had visited Bowdish’s Brookville home to view his miniature display.

As Bowdish added new models to his display, people from all over the country descended on the tiny town of Brookville. By 1954, more than 300,000 people had visited his house to see the expanding and intricate little world. Look closely at today’s version to find a model of the home where he displayed his creation—with a line of people snaking up its front steps waiting to enter.

Among Bowdish’s more well-known contributions: that woman walking back and forth in a lit room as she rocks her baby. It turns out that this model home was inspired by his own childhood home, complete with his mom rocking his older brother to sleep on the porch.

He also created a crowd favorite—“handstand man,” the death-defying acrobat who does a handstand on a pole high above a turn-of-the-century amusement park, a composite of Kennywood, the old Luna Park in North Oakland, and Lakemont Park in Altoona. “Charlie designed it in his living room,” Bob Tinkham says of the acrobatic animation. “We have his drawing on how he did it.”

The pole is high above a model of Leap the Dips, the oldest wooden roller coaster in the world, built in 1902 in Lakemont Park. On one of his days off from giving Miniature Railroad tours, Tinkham went to Altoona and rode the old-time roller coaster. As he shares this bit of history with Science Center visitors, he takes off his hat to show the “I rode the world’s oldest wooden roller coaster” ticket taped to the inside.

Among Charles Bowdish’s crowd favorites: an acrobat that manages to accomplish a handstand high above the Miniature Railroad’s amusement park

Then there are the personal stories of visitors. A couple of years ago, Everly and team invited a community group from the Hill District to view the model of the Crawford Grill. Everly had researched old photographs and records of the famous jazz club as inspiration for the model. A tiny red-and-white poster in the window advertises a boxing match of Billy Conn, and a tiny version of famed photojournalist Charles “Teenie” Harris stands snapping a picture of men unloading a sparkly new piano for the jazz club.

As part of the sneak peek, they showed the group a 1947 photo taken by Harris.

“That’s me in the hat!” exclaimed Dorothy Slater, now in her 80s, who at the time the photograph was taken was celebrating her 18th birthday with her mother and other relatives.

“I was wearing that bright green dress and I thought I was hot stuff,” Tinkham recalls her saying. Slater shared her memories of the jazz club, where greats like Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Louis Armstrong played. Then she gave Everly and her staff the highest compliment: “You got it just right.”

About a year ago, Everly received a phone call from a man who said his friend had made something for her.

What could it be, she wondered?

The man in his 60s arrived with friends and handed Everly a box with tissue paper wrapped around three tiny trees, each one with an eagle’s nest in it. He explained that, as a 6-year-old boy, he had stolen one of the trees so he could take it home and figure out how they made it—which he did—but he always felt guilty about it. So he wanted to make amends five decades later.

Everly joked with the man that they were going to frisk him on the way out the door. “They were delightful,” she says, noting that she added one of the man’s trees to the display.

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