| Cool Cats Toy Museum |
 |
Four years ago, Cathy Allan accrued such an enormous toy collection that she ran out of storage space after using her house, her mother's home and a 10 x 10 storage unit packed to the ceiling. So with the assistance of Del Mar College Small Business Development Center who helped her put together the required paperwork |
to obtain a small business loan through ACCION Texas and the help of her husband, Jerry Allan, she moved into a 3,000-square foot building in September to properly display the collection, calling it Cool Cats Toy Museum.
"I wanted the museum to be something I could share instead of having all this stuff in a box," said Cathy Allan. "It's no fun if you can't share it with someone and who better than kids and families where they can build memories."
As a child, Allan wasn't an avid toy collector and admits to owning few dolls - two Barbie dolls to be exact. But the collection took off when her mother, Mabel Dedmon, bought Star Wars toys when the movie hit theaters, Allan said. Family members and collectors have donated other items. Allan now has more than 500 dolls (Barbie, Disney, celebrity and sports) on display.
The Cool Cats Toy Museum in Flour Bluff offers visitors ages 5 to 105 a glimpse of different toys - from an 18th century Jenny Lind doll to a talking Wicked Witch of the West. There are also themed exhibits: Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Star Wars, castle and dragon fantasy, NFL, NASCAR and more. The museum includes a gift and soda shop and a resident mascot - Smokey, a talking African Grey Parrot.
"There's something for everybody," Allen said. "Whatever hero or villain you can think of is here somewhere in this museum. Right now, my favorites are Harry Potter, Shrek and Stuart Little."
Robert and Sandra Moreno donated Star Wars and Star Trek action figures and will add their personal ET collection later this month.
"I like that out of all the different toy lines, about every toy line she had was complete," Sandra, 29, said.
Students like Tim Thornton drop by after school. Thornton visits the museum almost every day to play pinball, board games, work on homework or just relax and drink a soda. "I just go out there to hang out and have fun," said Thornton, an eighth grader at Flour Bluff junior high school. |
|
