Up in Flames: Union Navy Ships Destroyed in 1861
January 14, 2025 – April 6, 2025
“My first foray into model making was in 7th grade art class. The instructor asked us to bring a plastic model to class to build. I informed my mother of the request without much hope I would get one. There was almost no money in the family budget for such things. It is one of my most cherished childhood memories when my mother presented me with not one, but three model aircraft kits! That day began a lifelong hobby.”
— Gregory A. Baumgartner
Exhibit Overview
This exclusive exhibition spotlights the extraordinary craftsmanship of local model maker Gregory A. Baumgartner, who has been building scale models since childhood. Built in the 1:72 scale, where one inch is the equivalent of 6 feet, this selection of historic warships were destroyed and abandoned at Gosport Navy Yard by the Union Navy in 1861 to prevent their capture by the Confederacy. Exquisitely handcrafted by Greg from their original blueprints, each model features remarkable details including hand-carved figure heads and thousands of accurately tied sailor knots.
Greg has scratch-built models of all 11 warships destroyed at Gosport Navy Yard. Of those models, this exhibition features:
USS Dolphin (1836)
USS Pennsylvania (1837)
USS Merrimack (1855)
USS United States (1797)
The Mini Time Machine Museum is honored to present Gregory A. Baumgartner's first solo exhibition of his model warships. Based in Vail, AZ, he is the first artist featured in our 2025 Community Corner exhibition series.
“I was looking for a ship to build that was not available as a kit and was an American vessel. I had thought I would be making something similar to the USS Constitution. However, I chanced upon a link to an article that mentioned the destruction of several American ‘ships of the line.’ My interest piqued, I clicked on it. Things just snowballed from there. Searches for plans brought me to the Smithsonian Institute, which had a catalog of every ship built for the US Navy! Once I got it, I was off and running. I dove in headfirst and picked the biggest one of the 11 ships destroyed in that event: the USS Pennsylvania, a 130 gun, four-decker ship of the line.”
— Gregory A. Baumgartner
Meet the Artist
Gregory A. Baumgartner first fell in love with making scale models in the 7th grade. In his youth, he made every type of model kit he could get his hands on, including warplanes, tanks, and spacecraft from popular films and TV shows such as Star Wars and Star Trek. These days, he finds tremendous satisfaction in designing his own scratch-built wooden models of renowned ships from their original blueprints dating from the late 1700s and 1800s. His solo exhibition, Up in Flames: Union Navy Ships Destroyed in 1861, features four of these historically accurate, scratch-built warships, lost in the disaster at Gosport Navy Yard in April of 1861.
Join us for a Members Only artist reception! Meet the artist, enjoy light bites and wine, and learn more about the rich history of this fascinating artform.
January 16, 2025 from 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Already a member? Register for the reception here! Registration is required to attend.
Learn more about the craft of model ship building from Gregory Baumgartner on his YouTube channel!