The old wax museum...located where the present wax museum is. The old place was a typical roadside attraction from the '50's and '60's. The figures were cheap, not well made. The other exhibits were typical crap you could buy at flea markets. They had a series of crappy wax figures depicting the life of Christ. It smelled like a musty basement or attic in the place. However, it was clean, fairly well kept, and because of the booming tourist business in the 70's and '80s, always fairly busy. As a guy in my late teens, it was kind of cool, kind of creepy, to go through the place with friends and make fun of the exhibits. Also weird...like in a cheap "B" movie sense. It was quiet inside the attraction, broken by the swish and whirl of air conditioning units. You had the sense that you really didn't know what would confront you as you rounded each corner. MAN, I LOVED THAT PLACE! Great place to take a date, hold hands, and neck a little as you walked down the narrow passages. Twilight Zone stuff, really! The Old Jesse James Museum at Confusion Hill next to the Jesse James Motel (Where the Veteran's Museum is now) was another place like the old wax museum. So was the Wash Gibbs Museum adjacent to Shepherd of the Hills that old Chick Allen (An early SDC staple "Citizen") owned and operated. All these typical roadside attraction tourist traps were fading out when I was leaving high school and entering college in the late 70s, early 80s, but they were cool little cheap places to explore. Several were on the SDC employee "Pass Exchange Program" list, and we former citizens got in free...that was cool, too.
