Gibson Collection at the Nevada State Railroad Museum enabled by donation

A $40,000 donation by the four children of Jack and Margie Gibson has enabled a key exhibition at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City in honor of their parents.

Called the Gibson Collection, it includes 15 detailed, hand-crafted model replicas of the original Virginia & Truckee (V&T) locomotives and the McKeen motor car. The one-of-a-kind models honor the couples’ decades-long service to the museum.

A free reception Friday at 5 p.m. and a 6 p.m. dedication program are planned at the railroad museum to celebrate the Gibsons’ support over the years, according to a Nevada Museums & History news release.

The models, done over 16 years, were built by railroad fan George L. Richardson beginning in 1957. He loaned them to the Nevada State Museum in 1973, according to the release.

The collection was moved to the railroad museum after the Jacobson Interpretative Center opened in 1990, but the replicas weren’t museum property until now.

The Richardson models were purchased for the railroad museum by Diane Uchytil, Suzan Oliver, Gail Simon and Skip Gibson and were donated in collaboration with the Friends of the Nevada Railroad Museum.

The late Jack Gibson, who died in 2014, and his spouse, Margie, who died in 2015, were married in 1941 and moved to Nevada in 1959.

Gibson, a printer, enjoyed a life long love affair with trains. The Gibsons actively campaigned for the creation of the Nevada State Railroad Museum in the 1980s. They generously supported it and the Nevada State Museum in various ways.

The formal name of the new collection is the Jack and Margie Gibson Collection.

Gibson worked in Nevada for the Fallon Eagle-Standard, as well as the Nevada Appeal in Carson City. He was Appeal production manager from 1975-1982 when he retired.