THE PRICELESS JUNKYARD
What ever happened to the first telephone, the first horseless carriage,
the first sewing machine, and the first telegraph instrument? You may
think, “Who cares, they would only be junk by now.” But you would be
wrong. These things may be old, but they are not junk. They are an
important part of the history of inventions in the United States.
They have been saved bv the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
They are on display with many other famous “firsts” in some of the
buildings of the Smithsonian Institution.
You can see such famous airplanes as the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk
and Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. You can see Alan Shepard,
Jr.’s space capsule, Freedom 7, Benjamin Franklin’s printing press,
and the huge Hope diamond. You can even see the flag that flew over Fort
McHenry when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
