HUDSON – “Edu-tainment” is the theme and aim of the American Heritage Museum, according to Hunter Chaney, the museum’s director of marketing and communications.  

“As we see it, all our exhibits turn something static into something real,” he said. 

Speaking to members and guests of the Hudson Historical Society at the Nov. 29 meeting, Chaney said the museum, which opened in 2019 on lower Main Street, offers historic education and entertainment from the Revolutionary War through today.

The museum had its beginnings when it was founded by Bob and Caroline Collings in 1979, as the Collings Foundation – a non-profit, educational foundation, originally organized to exhibit major war artifacts. Their son, Rob Collings, now heads the Foundation. 

His parents still reside near the property and “Bob” Collings is billed as “the Museum’s No. 1 volunteer,” according to Chaney.

When the foundation selected the Stow/Hudson site, it was initially unpopular with Stow town officials and some residents who were concerned about increased traffic in the Stow/Lake Boone area, Chaney reported, but the proposals for the hangar and the museum were eventually approved. A new entrance street was inaugurated, and there is now an easily seen entrance and sign on lower Main Street in Hudson.  

In the early 1980s, the foundation acquired its first World War II bomber, and it also began collecting classic…