Arkansas native Frank Moshinskie built a train display around the family Christmas tree every year. After a while, he decided it was too fun to take down. He kept adding to it and the end result is Tiny Town. It’s just the sort of twinky tourist attraction I was in the mood for.
We were met in the gift shop by Frank’s granddaughter. She escorted us into the display room and talked with us for five minutes or so about her grandfather and his hobby. Frank made most of the items by hand from leftover parts — matches, paper clips, hangers, tin cans.
It’s actually the made-from-scratch primitiveness that makes it interesting, because it certainly wasn’t polished or fancy.
Various features — trains, dancing bears, moving figures — are powered by motors hidden under the display. Some of these were permanently on. Others we activated with the push of a button.
We had circled most of the display when an older woman greeted us. She was Frank’s daughter and she gave us more details about Frank and his work. It was she that put most of the manufactured items in the display — cars and figures that weren’t homemade.
We stayed perhaps 45 minutes and looked at everything twice. It wasn’t a place to return to, but it was fun to see once.