Page Not FoundThis page could not be found. There may be several reasons for this, including:• We missed it when moving to the new site. • The page has been deleted or moved. • The address is incorrect (please check the address in the address bar). We apologize for any inconvenience. You could search for the page or start at our homepage. We would appreciate it if you would report the missing page by clicking the "Send a message to the Webmaster" link at the bottom-right of this page. Thank you for your help and patience! Page request: /%3Fp%3D456Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Send Me A Reminder Send a reminder days before [ Set Reminder ] ST. JAMES, MO — Historic Route 66 is the perfect location for its newest roadside attraction — a vacuum cleaner museum. This Mother Road is known for entertaining and educational venues and the new museum will deliver both in great fashion. The Vacuum Cleaner Museum will celebrate its grand opening on Thursday, August 27th with a ribbon cutting ceremony and ice cream social.

The celebration begins at 1:30 pm. The museum is located at Tacony Manufacturing, home of Riccar and Simplicity vacuum production. This extensive collection includes 500 vacuums spanning a century of progress. The museum displays vacuums from the 1910’s to modern times in decade-themed vignettes complete with period furniture and memorabilia from that era. Visitors will discover a glimpse of Americana through the evolution of the vacuum and accompanying newspaper and magazine advertising displayed in each decade. Tom Gasko, Museum Curator and National Authority on Vacuums, donated his collection to museum, which includes many from Stan Kann, legendary organist for the Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO. A collector since childhood, Gasko’s passion has allowed the former Festus vacuum retailer to appear in USA Today, the HBO’s documentary This Is America, and other national media. He has also served as president of the National Vacuum Cleaners Club. “Tom is perfect at blending entertainment with education”, says Joy Petty, Director of Marketing for Tacony Corporation’s Floor Care division.

“He has such an extensive knowledge of about how the vacuum cleaner has evolved, and how each was directly related to changes in America. You have no idea how exciting vacuums can be until you visit Tom at the museum”. There are also a few “celebrity” vacuums on display including the official vacuum cleaner of Air Force One and the childhood vacuum of Emmy nominated actor, James Earl Jones. The Vacuum Cleaner Museum and factory outlet are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with free admission. The museum is located just off of Hwy. 44 at exit 195, at #3 Industrial Drive, St. James, MO. .Tacony Corporation brought production of Simplicity and Riccar upright vacuums to the United States in 1997. At the time Tacony Manufacturing opened its doors, the entire vacuum factory consisted of only five employees. Almost a decade later, in 2006, the 120 employees of Tacony Manufacturing proudly watched as the first 1 millionth vacuum rolled off the production line. Headquartered in St. Louis and found in 1946 by Nick Tacony, Tacony Corp. is a privately held manufacturing and distribution company operating in four strategic business units: household vacuum cleaners, commercial floor care products, home sewing products and ceiling fans.

With more than 650 associates in 12 offices around the world, Tacony’s mission is to create long-lasting relationships that are based on trust and feel like family. eureka vacuum cleaner repairI’m taking my family to the Isle of Wight next weekend. bissell handheld vacuum cleanerAnd I’m sensing a certain reluctance, bordering on revolution. euro vacuum cleaners indiaMaybe, next time, we can do something different and I can get some inspiration from Weekend Escapes with Warwick Davis (ITV). Warwick is taking his family to … Isn’t that somewhere you go on holiday from, not to? Not at all, as it happens. At an outdoor adventure centre, Warwick and his daughter climb a tall pole with a platform at the top, a bit like a bird table, as Warwick says.

They make a Jacobean stew in a 17th-century manor house and visit the vacuum cleaner museum at Heanor (more for Warwick than the rest of his family to be honest, he’s an enthusiast). They also live history at the Black Country Living Museum, which looks brilliant – it’s a lot more entertaining for kids than your average (dead) museum is. It all looks pretty good, and Warwick and his family are excellent guides. Next year, I’m taking my family to the Midlands. It’s also entertaining – in a slightly cringey way – watching the effort people go to not to mention, or refer to, or even notice, that Warwick and his family have dwarfism. Certainly not to do jokes about it. So Warwick has to do his own. “I thought there was a height restriction in the army. Obviously not,” he says after he and his son fail to avoid conscription (first world war) at the living museum. “Prepare for the weight of two,” says the mountain rescue guide during a rock climbing rescue practice in which Warwick is playing the rescuee.

“To be honest, it’s not the weight of two,” says Warwick. “It’s more like one and a half.” The rescue man laughs, nervously. Others he entraps, leading them into trouble. “How high would you say I was now?” he asks Vicky, the adventure guide belaying him up a pole. “About five foot six,” she says, without thinking. No one fails any tests though, thankfully. Incidentally, they don’t go to Warwick itself, or even Warwickshire. A trick missed I’d say. We will be visiting the Stourbridge suburb of Wollaston. Birthplace of the steam locomotive, it says here.As museums go, this one will never join the ranks of the Victoria & Albert. But it is, surely, right up there alongside the Stockport Museum of Hatting and the Cumberland Pencil Museum as one of Britain's finer displays of the gloriously obscure. And you cannot possibly fault the enthusiasm of the curator. James Brown has been putting this collection together since he was eight and is so besotted with his subject that he can identify every exhibit with his eyes closed.

While his is a passion with limited appeal, the museum is attracting plenty of local interest. Flying high: James Brown in his vacuum cleaner shop And as far as James is concerned, this is a dream come true. He has finally opened Britain's first vacuum cleaner museum. Indeed, we ain't seen nothing yet. Apparently, this array of some 70 Hoovers, Electroluxes, Kirbys, Dysons and the rest represents only half of a collection spanning the best part of a century of automated suction. If James had more space, he might be able to create the Louvre of dust-busting. This is not what you expect to find on the High Street of a small former mining town in Nottinghamshire. Until today, Eastwood was best-known as the birthplace of the 20th-century author D.H. Lawrence. Now, Eastwood has another claim to fame - home of Britain's first domestic hygiene heritage tour. James, curator of Britain's only museum of vacuum cleaners, can even tell a model purely by its sound 'All I've ever wanted is to work with vacuum cleaners,' says James, 30.

There is no admission charge for the museum. It occupies the main part of Mr Vacuum Cleaner, the sales and repair shop which James has just opened with backing from the Prince's Trust. His priority is to get the business up and running, hence the new models gleaming in the window. But inside, most of the shop floor is given to the museum - plastic specimens from the Seventies, shiny, silver models from the Forties and even some rather elegant pre-war machines in perfect condition. Just mind your language. In the esoteric world of vacuum cleaner collecting, one should never use the word 'Hoover' as a verb, let alone a generic term. James winces every time I talk about 'hoovering' and stops me dead when I ask him: 'What's your favourite Hoover?' 'You can only call it a "Hoover" if it is made by Hoover,' he says firmly. 'Otherwise, it's a vacuum cleaner or a sweeper.' Fanatic: James Brown had no fewer than 50 vacuum cleaners by the time he was a teenager In any case, he adds, it wasn't Mr Hoover who invented the thing.

Seven years before W.H. Hoover produced his Model O in Ohio, an Englishman called Hubert Cecil Booth patented the powered vacuum cleaner. Puffing Billy was an engine on a horse-drawn cart, which went from house-to-house, sucking up dust via long tubes passed through windows and doors. 'Buckingham Palace bought three for Edward VII's coronation,' says James. 'It was quicker than taking all the carpets outside and beating them.' Perhaps we should talk about 'boothing' the house the next time our floors need a clean. It wasn't until the Fifties that vacuum cleaners became commonplace. 'Until then, they cost about a third of the price of a car,' says James. His own interest began early. 'When I was four and my mum was poorly, I used to help out with her Electrolux 345 Automatic,' James explains. 'When I was eight, my Dad found a little Goblin 800 that had been thrown away. We fixed it and that was my very own vacuum cleaner. Then I started collecting them. Next was a Selex and then a Spinney 600 …'

This shopkeeper not only knows his subject. James continues: 'To begin with, there was a rule: no more than six vacuum cleaners at a time. But I just started hanging on to them.' By his teens, James had no fewer than 50. He left school at 16, acquired some electrical qualifications and worked as a council caretaker. But he always dreamed he would have his own vacuum cleaner business - and somewhere to display his collection. Now, with a £2,000 Prince's Trust grant, he is under way. But James does not sell his favourite brand. 'There is, simply, nothing better than a Kirby. It is the Rolls-Royce of vacuum cleaners,' he explains. 'They last forever whereas the average machine lasts five years. But they cost thousands and have their own sales network.' His devotion to the retro-looking Kirby is such that he has even made a pilgrimage to the company's factory in Cleveland, Ohio ('I was so excited, I could barely speak'). His vintage Kirbys are not on display here, though. He looks at me incredulously.

'Let's just say, they're in storage,' he explains, as if we are talking about Faberge eggs or the Koh-i-Noor diamond. 'Some of them are gold-plated.' Who would want a gilt-edged Hoover - sorry, vacuum cleaner? Kirby covers a few of each model in gold leaf as prizes for its most successful salesmen. James has got his hands on three and reckons they are worth £2,500 each - the stars of a collection he values at about £50,000. Classic vacuum cleaners, it turns out, have a devoted international following. Just visit Vacuumland, the American website of the Vacuum Cleaner Collectors' Club, and you can sign up for this year's big convention in Austin, Texas, complete with dust-sucking competitions, hall of fame awards and lectures (but don't forget the strict limit of 12 machines per delegate). Vacuum connoisseurs are divided into many camps. Ambition: James always dreamed he'd one day have his own vacuum cleaner business Do you favour the conventional bag machine (which sucks dust into a bag) or the new-wave 'cyclonic' cleaner, like the Dyson, which spins the air round and uses a centrifugal force to drive the dust into a container?

Are you a fan of the 'upright' model, which you push around with its rotating brush, or do you prefer the 'cylinder', a hose attached to a plastic box, which trails behind you like an electric dog on a lead? These, no doubt, are topics of earnest debate in Vacuumland. James is a dustbag/ upright kind of chap. I have heard a rumour that James can distinguish every model merely by its sound. 'Oh, not again,' he groans. He stands in a corner with a woolly hat over his head, while I try to catch him out. That's a Dirt Devil Eclipse … that's a Hoover Turbomaster from 1991 … that's the Electrolux Contour. Very popular in the mid- Nineties …' Then a couple wander in. They need a vacuum cleaner, but have no idea what they want. James is more like a family doctor than a salesman, asking if they have pets and discussing their floor surfaces and priorities. He can offer everything from a restored Electrolux at £39 to a top-of-the-range Miele for £185. They decide to have a think. Later, an elderly gent drops in looking for a Dyson part.