Eldred's WWII Museum Offering Free Admission on Veterans Day

For a veteran, every day is Veterans Day. But when Nov. 11 comes around at the Eldred World War II Museum in Eldred, Pa., it’s a day for everyone to commemorate.

The museum, located at 201 Main St., in Eldred, about 80 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., is offering free admission for Veterans Day for anyone who wants to tour the museum and remember the war between the Allied and Axis powers.

Director Steve Appleby said that World War II veterans will be on hand to discuss their experiences in the war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

The Eldred WWII Museum is rich in memorabilia from Eldred World War II. The museum, which opened on Memorial Day 1996, is dedicated to the memory of the U.S. fighting forces and the 40 million people on the home front who provided the troops with the war materials they needed.

The fact that this museum is located in Eldred is not a coincidence – Eldred was the site of a British and American munitions plat that produced eight million bombs, mortar shells and fuses. About 1,500 people worked there 24 hours a day from January 1942 to May 1945 to support the war effort.

The museum garnered national attention as one of the most underrated museums in the U.S and was labeled a world class museum in a tiny town.

The “town of Eldred stretches maybe one mile down a rundown highway, with no fast food restaurants and one gas station,” notes Insider Perks president Brian Searl, but inside the Eldred World War II Museum three levels of World War II memorabilia await, including “huge model displays that you can drive toy tanks over [and] replicas of life-size submarines” as well as “life-size bunkers you can walk inside, thousands of artifacts from guns to patches and flags to uniforms.” Searl adds that the museum “could quite literally have been picked up from Washington, D.C., alongside any of the other Smithsonian’s [buildings] and been dropped here overnight.”

Another tie to World War II is just 30 minutes away in Bradford.

The Zippo/Case Museum, located at 1932 Zippo Drive, became an American icon during World War II when famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle termed Zippo founder George G. Blaisdell as “Mr. Zippo.”

Admission to the museum, which is open seven days a week, is free anytime.

A Zippo/Case store is also on site so travelers need to bring some plastic or cash with them, too.

For more information on the museum or other area attractions, contact the Allegheny National Forest Visitors Bureau at 800-473-9370 or e-mail info@visitanf.com. Information, as well as downloadable maps, are also available at www.visitANF.com.

Pictured, the Eldred World War II Museum
Courtesy of the Allegheny National Forest Visitors Bureau