EGGS AND FOOTBALLS

Texans who love their football will probably appreciate the collection of Don Meredith memorabilia on display at the Fire Station Museum in Mount Vernon, hometown of the pro-football legend. The museum, housed in a 1940’s fire station built courtesy of funding from the Works Administration Program, is administered by the Franklin County Historical Association. Other exhibits feature Native American artifacts and a changing roster of special exhibitions on Franklin County history. In addition to football, the museum displays another favorite subject – butterflies. The selection of mounted butterflies, many of which were collected in Texas, includes several extinct subspecies. But perhaps the museum’s most intriguing exhibit is its unusual bird egg collection. Once a popular hobby for Victorian Americans, collecting bird eggs is now outlawed in order to protect threatened and endangered bird populations, making the museum’s collection all the more unique. The museum’s Victorian Bird Egg Collection includes approximately 200 eggs collected during the 1880’s. The collection features rarities from the Passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet, birds now extinct. Alongside each concisely labeled and displayed egg is an image of the corresponding bird, an informative and educational component of the egg collection that will surely appeal to all novice oologists (“oology” being the study of eggs).