Photo courtesy City of Scottsdale

A boxcar full of goodies showed france’s appreciation for the United States’ aid in World War II. A local activist helped get it back on track.

If an aging French boxcar seems an odd fit in Arizona’s official archives, consider what’s inside: a Peugeot bike, a wedding gown from seamstresses in Lyon, secrets from the French Resistance Party, an eclectic French art collection, a Renault wind-up car and hundreds more collectibles like these.

The boxcar came courtesy of the Merci Train, a rolling thank you from France to America for sending so much aid to its devastated cities following World War II. Each U.S. state received a car brimming with gifts of gratitude.

While other states gave away their gifts, Arizona kept them all and reportedly boasts the largest collection today at 1,700 pieces. In May, officials doubled the size of the Merci Train exhibit at the Arizona Capitol Museum to put more of its treasures on display, including the never-worn wedding gown and vintage Peugeot.

This year, Arizona is also marking the 20th anniversary of the restoration of its boxcar, which was rescued from the desert and given a new home at the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale. And soon, the story of Arizona’s boxcar and its gifts will be a part of a documentary about the historic Merci Train’s journey.

Though that journey is 60 years old now, the ongoing curiosity about it – whether from filmmakers, tourists or museum patrons – comes as no surprise to people like Capitol Museum Curator Brenda McLain. “It’s just a really great story,” she says.

After World War II, American newspaper columnist Drew Pearson wrote about the hardships still being experienced by Europeans. Americans rallied around Pearson, and in 1947 they sent a 700-car Friendship Train filled with food, medical supplies and other aid to France.

Two years later, France loaded 49 boxcars with 52,000 objects – personal belongings, wedding dresses, bikes and personal notes – and shipped them overseas, according to the exhaustive Mercitrain.org Website compiled by researcher Earl Bennett. Forty-eight cars went to states, while Washington, D.C., and the Territory of Hawaii shared the final car.

Arizona’s boxcar rolled into Phoenix in February 1949 and went on display at the state Capitol grounds Downtown. A front-page newspaper headline gushed, “French gift car accepted in colorful rites,” while a photograph showed hordes of people crowded around the car.

Boxcars around the country got similar receptions. In New York, 200,000 people turned out for a ticker-tape parade; in Kansas, the car toured 120 towns and drew 40,000 people over a 10-day period.

As states showed off their boxcars, they began giving away their gifts to museums, libraries, schools and other institutions. The handmade wedding dresses – though not haute couture – were the envy of American brides-to-be. In Connecticut, 150 women – each with the required 24-inch waist – entered a contest to wear the gown. In Illinois, about a dozen women competed for a gown that officials decided should go to the fiancée of a World War II veteran who served in France.

Photo courtesy Arizona Capitol Museum Peugeot bicycle

Eventually, of course, the Merci Train excitement wore off. The once-prized boxcars were parked in various places and fell into disrepair; a few were reportedly destroyed. What happened to Arizona’s car isn’t exactly clear, but it moved around before landing at the Pioneer Living History Village, where it sat “baking in the sunshine,” says local historian and author Joan Fudala.

Then, in 1985, came salvation. At a dinner party, Arizona’s honorary French consul suggested to Scottsdale resident Zina Kuhn that she rescue the Merci Train and restore it, as other states were doing.

Kuhn, a Russian-born, French-speaking, America-loving military wife and community activist, was just the woman for the job, Fudala says. Beyond her patriotism, Kuhn had an emotional tie to the boxcar: During the war, her family was deported from their home in Poland on a boxcar bound for a labor camp.

Kuhn started talking up the Merci Train project to Scottsdale’s then-Mayor Herb Drinkwater and Guy Stillman, namesake of the railroad park. She also began fundraising, flew to France to replace the military plaques that once graced the boxcar, visited other states to learn about their restoration projects and got the Arizona car moved to the railroad park. It was restored by 1989.

No hurdle was too big. “Good ol’ Zina. She had a lot of moxie,” says Fudala, who is writing a book about Kuhn’s life.

The French gifts have remained in safe keeping at the state archives. Although only a fraction of them can be displayed at the newly expanded Capitol Museum, those pieces more than tell the story.

“It’s a spectacular collection,” says the museum’s McLain. “It shows all facets of life in France at the time.”

Among the standouts, McLain says, are all the toys donated by families and children for children. There are dolls in fancy dresses, an ABC book, a boxed chess set, a metal watering can, a stamp collection with an attached note that reads, “Please remit to an American schoolboy collecting stamps.”

“These are people who had just gone through how many years of German occupation and war?” McLain asks. “These are toys they played with, and they gave them away.”

The collection also includes many hand-sewn objects accompanied by notes, like a lace collar “for a girl or young lady” and a purple and pink knitted jacket and cap for “an American baby.”

There are objects from French organizations and companies, like the kitschy souvenir plate from the French Geography Department, the ornate hand mirror from the National Union of Mirror Makers and Sheet-Glass Dealers, and the toy car from Renault. The French Resistance Party included a book about its efforts during the war, an armband and a dance card used to secretly identify other Resistance party members.

Perhaps the most touching objects are simple stars cut out of paper and fabric from people with nothing more to give.

“I am an old lady,” explains one woman in a note with her star. “However, I send you a token of my appreciation… to thank you with all my heart for liberating us from this nightmare.’’

For more information about the Merci Train, visit therailroadpark.com/merci.