![]() But the core of the collection had been saved. The place had the aesthetic of a warehouse - dummies crammed together in mass displays - far from the elegant period tableaus of Potter's International Hall of Fame. New figures were added, two or three a year, mostly celebrities. But his sympathetic curator, Dottie White, bought 150 of the dummies and reopened the museum in a much smaller, three-room space, calling it Potter's House of Wax. That should have been the end of George's attraction. His son, freed from his father's obsession, started selling the dummies. It was the second largest wax museum in the world. He expected his tour guides - he called them "historians" - to know every fact about every dummy (He would show up unannounced from Indiana for spot inspections).īy the end of the 1970s George had several hundred dummies on display in an impressive two-story building. ![]() George wrote a 400-page guidebook detailing the history of every dummy in his Hall of Fame, and wrote letters-to-the-editor demanding the abolishment of unions and income taxes. Scenes from the 1953 Vincent Price film House of Wax were reportedly filmed at Potter's. Press clippings from the time report that George flew dummies across the Atlantic in airline seats (There are also stories that he warehoused them in the mansion garage in Lafayette). He ordered hundreds of top-of-the-line custom-made wax dummies from London, had them dressed in the finest outfits by costumers of the Royal Theatre, and in 1948 opened his dream attraction, Potter's International Hall of Fame, in St. ![]() George, who was generally thought to be a skinflint, decided to indulge his fantasy. But then George's dad, mom, and wife all died within a few years of each other. Augustine, the self-proclaimed "Oldest City in America." According to local lore, he was also smitten when he traveled to England and toured Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.ĭad never trusted George with money. He was fascinated by history, and especially St. It also is a stop on the trolley.George's family had a vacation home in Florida. There is a parking lot adjacent to the museum and a parking deck across the street. Potter’s is near the north end of the historical district, easily walkable from the Castillo or St. When you first walk in, the staff is very warm and they are obviously very proud of their attraction and want visitors to enjoy it. In the lobby, note the display of old medications that connect back to the building’s original use as a pharmacy. The museum encourages visitors to take photographs - just don’t touch. Their placement and realism give you the impression that they are watching you. There are a few faces that I thought didn’t look exactly right, but most are very recognizable. Because the figures are life-sized, one realizes how short, tall or big the subjects really were (or are, as some are still alive). For families, it provides a good opportunity to talk about history and connect famous names to lifelike replicas. Potter’s concentrates more on history than celebrities, although there are a few interesting figures like Michael Jordan and Harry Potter. This is a unique and pioneering museum with a different vibe than Madam Tussauds, so it adds some variety to the usual list of tourist sites.
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