The Raymond F. Ratcliffe Transportation Museum, Pulaski, Virginia

What is the Raymond F. Ratcliffe Transportation Museum?

Some of you are saying, “Well, duh!  It is a museum about transportation.”

Yes, it is about transportation.  No, it is not as big as the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia or The North Carolina Museum of Transportation in Salisbury, North Carolina, but it has a special uniqueness.

Some of you are saying, “That is very unique, but we have never heard of Raymond F. Ratcliffe.  How does this museum get the name?”

That is a very good question.  Who is Raymond F. Ratcliffe.  No, it is not a name of someone they pulled out of a hat.  To answer the question, we must first talk about the town where the museum is located.

The town of Pulaski, Virginia was incorporated in 1886 as Pulaski City, and it was a small town at the center of commerce and industry in the region, and the railroad played a major role in the establishment of the town.  The museum is named after the town’s thirteenth mayor, Raymond F. Ratcliffe.  Before he was mayor, he worked at numerous industries in the region, and he played a role in the town playing a major role in the region.  Although the town never became a major industrial city like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Birmingham, Alabama, it was still the center of the coal mining industry and the steel industry in the region.  He wanted to create a museum to remember the town as a center of industry.  After his death, the Raymond F. Ratcliffe Memorial Museum, after numerous controversies, was established.

Today, you can visit the Raymond F. Ratcliffe Transportation Museum and see photos and exhibits about a town that once was.  You can see old cars on display, and you can see the Doctor Milton Brockmeyer ‘O’ scale model train display that displays the town back in the days of Mayor Raymond Ratcliffe, and you can see the Willie Ryan ‘N’ scale model train display.

The Raymond F. Ratcliffe Transportation Museum, also known as ‘The Ratcliffe’, tells the life of a small town in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Virginia and how transportation to include the railroad played a major role in the establishment of this town.  If you are an out of towner, you will appreciate this museum and have a great appreciation of small town life.

The Raymond F. Ratcliffe Transportation Museum is located in a shopping center at 51 Commerce Street (at U.S. Route 11) in Pulaski, Virginia.  Parking is on site.  You can get more information on admission, hours, and read more into the history of the museum and more into the life of Raymond F. Ratcliffe at https://www.theratcliffemuseum.com/.

Come to the town of Pulaski, Virginia.  Learn about small town life and how the railroad played a role in the town.