What museum requires a security clearance, proof of US citizenship, behind barbed wire, with…read morephotography strictly forbidden?
Contacted the museum curator at 408-735-2020, and got through e-mail an application to visit the iron museum. Returned the application with a time and date, agreeable to the curator. Routine security check done on all visitors in advance.
Entered the main office at 401 East Hendy, offices of the Northrup Grumman Marine Systems. Barbed wire fences surround the building. Sign says photography and recordings forbidden beyond this point, and daypacks searched for recording devices.
We surrender our cell phones for visitor badges, and show our current passports as proof of US Citizenship, and sign in.
We are escorted by the curator into the single story business building of the Northrup Grumman Marine Systems facility, which is a major defense contractor. All employees and visitors must wear an electronic badge.
The museum is located well within the building. Curator swipes his electronic badge along the side of the door to the museum section, like a credit card, opening the place up.
Museum shows the history and products of the Joshua Hendy Iron works, the largest iron works in the country west of the Mississippi.
First room is called the nostalgia room, and has a cutout of Betty Furness showing vintage Westinghouse home and kitchen products, like refrigerators, stoves, washing machines. The electric stove from the 1940s looks like the one in my sister's house in Berkeley!
There is the original office of the plant manager John Hendy, complete with bulky adding machine, and typewriter, both the size of a bowling bag!
Black and white pictures of the San Francisco Machine Shops in 1880 of Joshua Hendy, the hydraulic mining with the Hendy Giant Monitor using high pressure hoses to water blast away dirt and rocks in mining -this type of mining was soon outlawed, due to muddy debris contaminating the lower streams and bays.
Lady found a black and white drawing of a gentleman in a garage sale at the turn of the 21st century. Turned it over and saw the words Hendy, and contacted the museum. The curator made a visit, took one look, and recognized it as Joshua Hendy. Drawing sits on the shelf of the original office, dated 1860!.
There is a cutout of George Westinghouse with models of steam turbines, including those used to outfit the Liberty ships in World War 2. When they got the contract to build steam turbines for the Liberty ships and Corvettes (destroyer escorts), the size of the plant went from 60 employees to 7500 employees, with the newly constructed buildings covering 60 acres!
The Iron man museum was used to build twin 3" heavy anti aircraft gun mounts and eventually even manufacture parts for the atomic bomb.
Another room has models of the fleet ballistic missiles. Hendy ironworks was used to manufacture the launching tubes of the missiles, which were used to shoot the missiles from underneath the water, into the atmosphere, where the rocket engines ignite and take over.
There are the models of the Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from underwater Trident submarines, into the atmosphere, before going at low altitude to evade radar to their targets. Used in the first Iraq war, the launching tubes were made by Hendy.
Finally there is the vault room, with concrete walls 18" thick, which survived the 1906 earthquake, and served as the payroll room -probably safer than the local banks!
Curator tells the story of an estate sale of one of the big bosses of the ironworks, where they got the original glass audio record recording templates of historic speeches by the plant leaders to the workers during the war, including then Senator Harry Truman. Curator had his best poker face, while inside being euphoric at the thought of acquiring these priceless recordings. After some bickering got them down to 38K. Shame on you for taking advantage of an old widow!
There are coffee mugs, booklets, and post cards for sale -exact change, cash only, with a donations jar. Website under development at www.ironmanmuseum.com.
Many if not most of the tours are conducted for new employees in their first month on the job, the second Monday of every month from 11:30am to 12:30pm. Most leave with their mouths wide open in awe and astonishment of the historic scope of the ironworks!
