Buffalo Bill Museum, Le Claire Iowa

The Buffalo Bill Museum in Iowa, celebrates the life of "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who was born there, however, the museum actually highlights local history, featuring several river pilots and captains of river boats. And beyond the notable Le Claire residents, there was a reasonably large amount of "old stuff" and memorabilia that was donated by the citizenry.

The exhibit I enjoyed the most, by far, was the office of James J Ryan. He was a professor and an inventor. He was the inventor of the Flight Data Recorder - "The Black Box", which is neither black nor a box.

Ryan and his students also invented seat belts for cars long before the government required them.

A truly interesting artifact was the crash helmet - which looked incredibly similar to an early 1960's football helmet. And I should clarify, the crash helmet was Ryan's, as he was commonly the crash dummy.

He and his students built a crash sled to crash test cars and they would raise cars up with a crane to simulated a head on crash at 40 mph.

The museum features exhibits on riverboat history, and includes the Lone Star, a historic wooden-hulled steamboat - the last of its kind - steam powered paddle boat . It was in service from 1869 to 1969 when it was pulled from service because it no longer met transportation safety requirements. We were able to tour the riverboat.

And just for Phanie Fae:
Wild Bill's wife was 'Lulu' Fredericci. Close, but it made us think of you.Read more