The Reiser House Visitor Center is located at 101 Canal St. in Hollidaysburg. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

Recent controversy over a proposal to replace 19th-century artifacts at the Reiser House in Hollidaysburg’s Canal Basin Park with displays highlighting the borough’s connection with the 1940s Slinky toy may have been settled with a compromise.

Mayor Chad Repko this month told Borough Council that the Reiser House was the only place for a Slinky museum, prompting complaints that substituting Slinky displays for all the canal basin relics would forfeit the educational value of the relics for something that — while worthy — is unconnected to Canal Basin Park and would be better housed elsewhere.

Because of the opposition, council this month tabled the issue until its meeting in April, but on Friday morning, members visited the Reiser House and concluded that there’s room enough for both the current relics and the proposed Slinky displays.

“We have the ability to have a win-win,” said Jane Sheffield, executive director of the Allegheny Ridge Corp., which rents the second floor of the borough-owned Reiser House. “It seems we’re likely to be able to do both (categories of exhibits) in a way that will be effective.”

The day before council members visited Sheffield at the Reiser House, Repko predicted there would be such a compromise.

If it couldn’t be at the Reiser House, the Slinky museum effort would probably die, the mayor said at council’s March 12 meeting.

The Reiser House is an ideal location for the Slinky museum, because it’s a “turnkey” location, he said in a phone interview Thursday.

The house is owned by the borough, it’s already a borough-staffed visitor center, it’s ADA compliant and has the necessary parking, the mayor said.

It’s also an “underutilized asset,” he said.

Any other option would likely cost “millions” to develop, he said.

Using the Reiser House would merely require a “switching of exhibits,” he said.

Further, a museum for the Slinky is a worthy goal, because the toy is an “iconic” piece of Americana; 400 million of them have been sold; it’s in the National Toy Hall of Fame; its image has been on a U.S. Postal Service stamp; it’s been manufactured in Hollidaysburg for many decades; the wife of its inventor lived in Hollidaysburg; and there is national media interest, especially as the nation’s 250th anniversary approaches — plus surviving members of the family want it at the Reiser House, Repko said.

“We’re trying to capitalize on the timing,” the mayor said.

The canal relics belong in the Reiser House, on the grounds of Canal Basin Park, according to borough resident Regis Nale, speaking at council’s March meeting.

It would be “devastating” to move them all to other locations, Nale said.

The canal operations are the primary reason Hollidaysburg is what it is today, Nale said. Without the canal, the town would be a much less significant municipality, he added.

“I support the (proposal for) the Slinky museum, but I don’t think it should be at the cost of losing the relics,” he said.

Sheffield plans to apply for a grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to upgrade the Reiser House’s canal basin exhibits.

It hasn’t been determined yet what proportion of the first-floor space at the house would be occupied by those exhibits and what proportion would be occupied by the Slinky displays, Sheffield said.

The compromise won’t be official until council votes next month, she said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.