Vote for the 2025 Miniature Railroad & Village® Model!
Miniature Railroad & Village® features hundreds of wonderfully realistic animated scenes that capture what life was like in our region before 1940. The Miniature Railroad team chooses new models that best represent Pittsburgh’s diverse history and give visitors the opportunity to connect with the exhibit on a personal level. Now the vote is in your hands for the Fall 2025 model! Select below.
Presque Isle Lighthouse
Presque Isle Lighthouse
Erie, PA 1873-Present
- Western Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie shoreline boasts three unique lighthouses, but the most popular is Presque Isle Lighthouse, affectionately known to locals as the “Flashlight.”
- Presque Isle Lighthouse was completed in 1873 along the north shore of the peninsula at the cost of $15,000.
- The structure is five bricks thick to withstand the extreme weather along the Great Lake’s coast.
- The tower is over 57’ high and painted white to serve as a daymark for travelers.
- The attached dwelling sheltered the lighthouse keeper and his family for many years until 1944 when the U.S. Coast Guard began tending the light. By 1962, the guiding light became automatic.
- In 1988 the lighthouse was transferred to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources which used it as a residence for park personnel in 1988.
- Since 2016, Presque Isle Lighthouse has been open seasonally for public tours, but it also is still a working navigation aid today.
Koontz Coffee Pot
Koontz Coffee Pot
Bedford, PA 1927-Present
- In 1927, service station owner David Berton Koontz designed and built a large-scale coffee pot to attract travelers passing through Bedford along the Lincoln Highway.
- The final product, made of bricks and sheet metal, stood at 18’ tall and 22’ wide and could hold 819,000 cups of coffee if it were a real pot.
- This roadside attraction started as a luncheonette and became a bar and hotel in 1937.
- The Pennsylvania Turnpike opening in 1940 diverted much of the Lincoln Highway traffic and led to the establishment’s downfall and scheduled demolition in the ’90s.
- In 2003, nonprofit Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor restored the coffee pot for $80,000 and funded its move to its current location across from the Bedford County Fairgrounds.
- Inside the now metallic silver-painted pot, visitors can view historic artifacts belonging to the Bedford Fair.
- Every week a group called the Coffee Pot Quilters meet to work on their annual quilt to be auctioned off at the Bedford County Fair.
- Today, the Coffee Pot is one of the few remaining vestiges of programmatic architecture in the United States.
J. Warren Jacobs Museum
J. Warren Jacobs Museum of Applied Oology and Purple Martin Birdhouses
Waynesburg, PA 1893-1947
- J. Warren Jacobs was a self-educated scientist specializing in ornithology and oology who lived in Waynesburg, PA, about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh.
- During his studies, Jacobs sketched and collected dozens of bird eggs, eventually cataloging enough to curate his own museum based in his home.
- His museum advertised as “an institution for the study and behavior of birds” and received widespread recognition from the scientific community.
- As Jacobs’ passion grew, he began building elaborate birdhouses to attract purple martin colonies to his home. Some of the birdhouses were as large as 8’ tall and weighed 500 lbs.!
- In 1893, Jacobs received so many requests for custom birdhouses at the Chicago World’s Fair that he founded the Jacobs Birdhouse Company.
- Jacobs Birdhouse Company became the first commercial manufacturer of purple martin birdhouses in the country. His customers included Henry Ford and William Rockefeller.
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