Harley-Davidson Museum Opens

It’s been about five years since The Harley-Davidson Motor Company began floating ideas about building a museum to house and showcase their huge collection of vintage & motorcycles and H-D memorabilia. A project (really 105 years in the making), Harley-Davidson has finally completed work on it $75 million-dollar museum located just three miles from the site of the original garage behind the home of the Davidson brothers where the very first motorcycles were built.

Harley-Davidson Museum Director, Stacey Schiesl, began the festivities by explaining the purpose of the Museum. “First, we want to build and strengthen the bonds with out customers and riders. Then we want to reach out to new people to promote the feeling of the brand and the riding experience. Last, we want to not only showcase the bikes, but also the people who rode them in the past, and ride them today”

Back in 2005, Harley-Davidson purchased 20 acres along the Menomonee River east of downtown Milwaukee. Construction on the H-D museum began 2 years ago, culminating in the $75 million-dollar Museum’s Grand Opening on July 12th, 2008.

Harley-Davidson commissioned architect Jim Biber of New York-based Pentagram Design to create an industrial looking campus where the steel frame would be an exposed exoskeleton, similar to the exposed frame of a motorcycle. The expansive use of glass would not only let in light, but provide an open backdrop to the street where motorcycles live their lives. And the 60-foot wide streets around the three buildings were designed to park motorcycles “Sturgis Style”, meaning nose-to-nose in the middle of the street and single-file on each edge of the street. There is space to park 1,000 motorcycles and 500 cars.

One building is the Museum proper, housing all the exhibits, with a second windowless and climate-controlled building that houses the rest of the Harley-Davidson archives and bikes that are not on display. (That building is not open to the public.)

The third building houses meeting rooms, party rooms, restaurants, and, of course, a large retail store where visitors will be able to purchase Harley-Davidson clothing and souvenirs, many that will be unique to the Museum store. H-D has already booked weddings and private parties for that building, and plans to be able to hold convention meetings, dealer meetings, and draw other non-motorcycle events to the site. All three buildings are connected by glass walkways. The surrounding park-like setting can also accommodate 15,000 people for concerts and special events and is always open to the public, even when the museum is closed.

Before entering the Museum, most visitors will be drawn to a large bronze statue rising from the central “Main Street” between the buildings. Titled “Dynamic Hill Climber,” it was sculpted by noted motorcycle artist Jeff Decker and was commissioned and donated by Nancy and Willie G. Davidson. The motorcycle that inspired the bronze can be seen inside the Museum. The Museum is set up as a time-line tour which begins on the second floor, so visitors can trace the history of Harley-Davidson from the first motorcycle to the present. But the exhibits are more than just a line of motorcycles. Photographs, trophies, clothing, advertising materials, magazine covers, dealer signage and all manner of items flesh out the time period that the motorcycles were used in and puts them in an appropriate context.

Even though it took 105 years to build a museum, it is obvious that the founders and all of the subsequent CEOs and executives were very aware of the historical significance of the Harley-Davidson company, their motorcycles, the lifestyle and the impact that the company had on American life. They had the foresight to save motorcycles from every year of H-D production (and/or acquired the bikes they needed to fill in any gaps) as well as all of the corporate documentation and vast amounts of H-D memorabilia that tell the story of this historic American motorcycle company that has captured the hearts of millions.



To get more information about museum hours of operation, ticket information, directions, and other general information, visit the Harley-Davidson website. Harley-Davidson is a registered TradeMark of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company.