World of Trains at Oak Ridge Children's Museum

The World of Trains exhibit is part of the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, a nonprofit institution that began as a Girl Scout project and opened on March 11, 1973, in the library of the former Jefferson Junior High School with the support of a $500 Reader's Digest grant. In January 1974 the museum moved into the former Highland View Elementary School — a 25-classroom building completed in 1944 to serve the children of Manhattan Project employees — and it purchased the building and land from the city of Oak Ridge in 1983, securing 54,000 square feet for exhibits, classrooms, and special events. When the Oak Ridge Historic District joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, the school building was counted as a contributing property. Selma Shapiro directed the museum from shortly after its 1973 founding until 2004, and in 2005 the American Association of Museums placed her on its Centennial Honor Roll as one of 100 American museum champions of the past century.