Friday, April 19 – The Lightner Museum

It is amazing that the week went by so quickly.  Only one field trip remains for today.  This morning the bus took us to the Lightner Museum, housed in the former Hotel Alcazar, built by Henry Flagler in 1888.  It seems that Flagler was involved in so many of the buildings that we toured this week.  In 1948 Otto Lightner, the Chicago millionaire and publisher, converted the empty hotel into a museum to contain his vast collection of art, antiques, and other items.  I’m not sure that I have ever seen so many different types of items all collected under one roof – a stuffed lion, authentic Egyptian mummy, toaster collection, stained glass, doll collections, paintings, sculpture, shells, and so much more.  My favorites are the music “box” collection, and we enjoyed having one of the docents play several of the 19^th century devices for us.  Part of the former indoor swimming pool is now used as the restaurant, and the hotels steam baths are still part of the building. 

 We returned to the hotel for our final lunch, and Dianne presented each of us with our official graduation certificate.  After saying our goodbyes and posing with Dianne in her Victorian clothing, Andrea and I and two other program participants drove the long way along the ocean coastline, back to the Jacksonville airport.  Of course, on the drive Andrea and I started planning for our next Road Scholar adventure!