History
For several years the Boron Chamber of Commerce had a dream to build an Aerospace Museum showcasing memorabilia and displays of aerospace systems associated with their neighbors, the Flight Test Center, Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA Dryden. The vision was to align the new museum next to the current Twenty Mule Team Museum. In 1996, an Aerospace Team was formed to begin the planning phase. The dream was becoming a vision with goals. Resources and costs were identified to complete the construction goals which included raising the funding needed to complete the project.
To show the local community this dream could be realized the first project was to obtain an aircraft display. The Aerospace Team worked to procure an F-4 Phantom through the Air Force Conditional Deeded Program, Davis Montham AFB, Arizona. This entailed raising twelve thousand dollars for environmental and transportation costs associated with the aircraft selected for display. In addition, a team of volunteers from Edwards, US Borax, KJC and the local community was organized to set up the display. This monumental task was completed in two weeks.
The next step in the process was to at the cost to purchase and build the Aerospace Museum. The Aerospace Team visited the March AFB Museum, Edwards AFB Museum and contacted other museums to obtain information on how they started. A plain was developed, the budget established and the Aerospace Team began working on a set of draft blueprints.
A ground breaking dedication ceremony was held at the site of the new museum on Sep. 13, 1997, to an attendance of well over a thousand friends, family and local community members.
Team Boron
Boron is the kind of community where civic-minded citizens pull together, work hard as a team, and in the end accomplish monumental undertakings. The citizens of Boron over the course of the next six years donated thousands of dollars and man-hours towards the construction of the Saxon Aerospace Museum. On September 5, 2003 their hard work was rewarded with the grand opening of the Saxon Aerospace Museum.
The Boron Chamber of Commerce would like to thank “Team Boron” (James Welling, Ken Ross, Hugh Jamison, Melvin English, Bob Cunningham, and George LaMoureaux) for their generous donations of both time and money in making the dream of the Saxon Aerospace Museum a reality. A special thanks also go out to our major corporate sponsors US Borax, KJC Solar, Meldon Glass and the U. S. Air Force. Our corporate sponsor’s philanthropic contributions of thousands of dollars of money and construction materials enabled us to build our world-class facilities.