Russell, Illinois: Russell Military Museum

Back yard battle cast-offs fill a museum and adjacent lot. A mashup of military gear, more for the equipment geek than the historian, which is fine by us. Also here: some NASA relics.

"Car crushing with army tanks" -- that's all we needed to hear.

The Russell Military Museum (formerly Kenosha) is holding a big fund-raiser on July 12th and 13th. One of the many highlights will be crushing a car with an M48 AVLB Tank! Other events include running a M4 Sherman Tank, and helicopter rides from WW Helicopters. The public is invited to climb inside a US Army tank and have their photos taken inside an AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter.

There will be food and music. Call (847) 395-7020 for more details or visit www.russellmilitarymuseum.com.

Just wanted to update and tell you we are re-opened to the public as the Russell Military Museum.

The Kenosha Military Museum was closed down by town officials so that they could build office complexes. We moved down the street about 2 miles to Zion, Illinois and are still located right on the interstate. We hope to reopen in the next couple months (07/2007).

The new location has a 14,000 sq ft. building for indoor displays and outdoors is a 10-acre parcel that is black-topped, so no more trudging through mud and grass to look at the vehicles. We are currently working to to get the doors open to generate money for the museum, with the intentions of building full-scale dioramas for all the vehicles.

Read in local paper that the military museum is closed and moving to a new location in Illinois. The village of Pleasant Prairie deemed the area "blighted" and forced the owners to move. From what I understand, it will be located only a few miles down the road in Illinois and will be bigger and better.