Jones' Fantastic Museum

Jones' Fantastic Museum was a family-oriented museum filled with a unique collection of weird and amazing inventions, strange sideshow attractions, old-time dime museum machines and antique exhibits, originally located in Snohomish County, and later in Seattle, Washington, United States, from 1963 to 1980. It was created by avid collector Walt a.k.a. Doc Jones.

In 1959, Jones and his wife Dorothy opened up a museum on Gunnysack Hill, a mile-long section of U.S. Route 99 just north of Lynnwood, Washington. This first museum was also named Jones' Fantastic Museum.

Many Jones pieces formed a popular attraction at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The collection subsequently found a home on the balcony level (third floor) of the former Food Circus (now Center House) in the Seattle Center. Called Jones' Fantastic Show when it first opened on Saturday, October 5, 1963, the Seattle museum was renamed Jones' Fantastic Museum sometime after the Gunnysack Hill museum closed.

Below are some excerpts from an article written by Terri Malinowski that appeared December 12, 1963 in the Northshore Citizen newspaper:

After purchasing five rustic acres north of Woodinville, [Jones] discovered the remnants of a log cabin on the property. The germ of an idea was born, and soon Walter and Dorothy Jones were constructing their own ghost town. Called Rusty Gulch, the full length street included a saloon, jail, barber shop and general mercantile store, while a whiskey still nestled snugly in the woods behind the town. The word of Jones' hobby spread and soon people were virtually climbing the fence to see his private creation.

Inevitably, to preserve family privacy and display the items in the proper manner, the couple opened its Highway 99 museum. Most of the ghost town and contents were moved to the museum, plus a variety of contraptions built by Jones himself.

Although Jones began building and collecting these curiosities some 15 years ago, they were only a domestic hobby until he and his wife Dorothy opened their Fantastic Museum on Highway 99 near Lynnwood four years ago. Then when the Seattle Center began casting about for novelty amusements this past summer, it contacted Jones. The Fantastic Show was born on the balcony of the Food Circus Oct. 5.

"I'm just trying to bring back some of the glamour, illusion and fakery of the old time medicine man shows and carnival sideshows," says Walter H. Jones as he tries to explain the appeal of his Fantastic Museum near Lynnwood and Fantastic Show at the Seattle Center.

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