196 South Main Street
Windsor, VT 05089

Notable for: largest US collection of significant machine tools

Links:
Museum site: http://www.americanprecision.org/
Also:   http://www.artcom.com/museums/nv/af/05089-06.htm

More about . . . this Mechanical Engineering Heritage Collection
The museum contains the largest collection of historically significant machine tools in the nation, tracing their evolutionary development from the earliest period. Metal-cutting machine tools bring to their work a degree of strength, guidance, attention, and stamina impossible for the human craftsman. Tools have produced all the machines of the Industrial Revolution and have made possible each successive advance in transportation, communication, and literally every other aspect of civilization. The leisure for universal education can be traced directly to the productivity of machine tools.

The museum is maintained within the original building of the Robbins and Lawrence Armory and Machine Shop.

Visiting Info:
[please confirm] regular hours, May 30-Nov 1 9am-5pm weekdays, 10am-4pm weekends and holidays

Ceremony Notes:
May 1987

Images: (N/A)

Comments from Visitors/Members: 1992 Survey by Ronald A. Liston: Admission: $2 adults, .75 children 6-12, free children under 6, maximum admission of $6 for a family. Special group rates available.

Directions: Off route 5, south of Rte 44 near Maple Street. Windsor is between Exits 8 and 9 of Interstate 91, south of I-89.

The Museum is located near the St. Gaudens Museum, the Parrish Museum, and the Windsor-Cornish covered bridge (longest covered bridge in the United States). Nearby attractions include Historic Windsor, Vermont State Craft Center, the Vermont Tourist Information Center, and the Constitution House.

The museum publishes a quarterly, Tools & Technology, as a forum for ideas and information about the history and impact of tools and machine tools (membership benefit).

Another publication, Muskets to Mass Production, outlines the evolution from the slow world of craft manufacture to the modern industrial era.

The museum collects drawings, photographs, correspondence, catalogs, periodicals, biograhical materials and related data for its reference files. Its largest reference asset is the 800 volume set of patent digests.

The building is the site of Robbins, Kendall & Lawrence armory and machine shop (1846), and it is recognized by ASME as a Mechanical Engineering Heritage Site as well. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Dept of Interior.