Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James to close for good Friday

Citing a “decline in physical attendance,” the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James, Missouri, announced Tuesday it will close its doors permanently Friday.

The Facebook page for the museum put out this message Tuesday:

The post does not elaborate on what will happen to the extensive vacuum collection.

The museum at 3 Industrial Drive in St. James sits a few blocks north of Route 66, sandwiched between the historic highway and Interstate 44.

The museum’s operators stated the closing was “to enhance local retailer support across the country, while providing broader access and a superior shopper experience for consumers seeking to purchase the Riccar and Simplicity brands from their local retailers.”

The closing was unexpected. The quarterly magazine for the Route 66 Association of Missouri soon will have a new issue with a feature about the museum. Editor Joe Sonderman said it was too late to change anything with that, and there apparently was no inkling of the museum’s shuttering.

On its website, the museum described its collection as thus:

Our vast collection takes visitors through vacuum history starting in the early 1900s with antiques such as the Royal Model 1 and ending in the present with today’s world-class vacuums. We have novelty vacuum cleaners such as the Hoover Constellation (a vacuum actually built to float like a hovercraft) and even celebrity vacuums (after all, TV housewives had to clean with SOMETHING!).

Atlas Obscura wrote:

The collection was started by Tom Gasko, a vacuum specialist who has been obsessed with vacuum cleaners since he was a child. Gasko started his collection at the tender age of 16, just before he started selling vacuums door-to-door at 17, beginning the life of a vacuum man in 1979. He became a master repair man and expert at all things vacuuming. By 1995 Gasko had become President of the Vacuum Cleaner Collectors Club, which is a thing. Subsequently Gasko and some other vacuum enthusiasts started another organization, known as the Vacuum Collectors Association, that would be by and for people working in the industry.

All throughout his career, Gasko had been collecting vacuum cleaners in his personal collection. By the late 2000s, he had accumulated over 600 machines ranging from vintage to modern. In 2009, he was finally able to open the Vacuum Cleaner Museum and Factory Outlet where he put his collection on display.

Here’s a good video about the museum:

The museum also displayed the official vacuum of Air Force One and the childhood vacuum of celebrated actor James Earl Jones.

(Image from inside the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James, Missouri, via Facebook)

5 thoughts on “Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James to close for good Friday

  1. I have passed through St. James on the old right-of-way and around St. James on I-44 and had no idea this quirky unique museum was located there. I must have missed the signs repeatedly. I would have stopped for sure, having a strong interest in mid-century modern design. I looked in the EZ66 Guide for Travelers (3rd edition) and found no mention of this attraction.

    Seems odd that the museum is closing now, as tourism season approaches. The article should have been a boost to the museum.

    I’ll be driving west from St. Louis along I-44/Route 66 the first weekend in May, but too late…

    1. I agree the timing seems odd, as does the lack of signs directing Route 66 travelers to it. No media had posted stories on the museum’s impending closure yet; I suspect we’ll hear more from local sources soon.

  2. Well, that sucks – as Americans would say. In Southport, Lancashire, there is the British Lawn Mower Museum – another quirky collection of household equipment.

  3. The new museum of vacuums has simply relocated to 410 S. Bishop in Rolla, Missouri. The collection always belonged to its original owner, Tom Gasko, and NOT Tacony Corporation.

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