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On The Road Again
The Oddporium, Arden, Del.
By RAY BALOGH | The Municipal
(All photos courtesy of The Oddporium)
ABOVE: The Oddporium houses hundreds of human and animal skulls and bones. “The human ones are medical,” said co-owner Beth Schuler. “The animals passed away naturally. We love animals.”
LEFT: Ken and Beth Schuler opened The Oddporium in 2015, kick-starting its inventory with items they collected during urban discovery adventures and photographing the demolition of several mental health asylums.
Perhaps no one embraces the peculiar, the bizarre and the curious with as much intriguing fervor and verve for teaching as Ken and Beth Schuler, owners of The Oddporium in Arden, Del. The two opened the attraction in 2015 in a two-story hand-me-down built in 1909 and owned by Ken’s family for more than a century. The building has been used as a residence and business and at one time housed a barbershop where Ken’s Uncle Frank, who recently passed away at the age of 101, used to cut Joe Biden’s hair. The walls, shelves and display cases throughout the main floor are packed with odd and sometimes macabre items such as human and animal skulls and skeletons, vintage medical machines and instruments, quack medical memorabilia, funeral-related items, glowing 12 THE MUNICIPAL | AUGUST 2021
glassware and clocks laced with radium, lamps made from cow femurs, Tesla coils made by Beth, a haunted doll, a levitating music box, New Age merchandise and the preserved carcass of a cycloptic pig named Amelia. The condition occurs once per 16,000 births, according to Ken. Beth’s favorite conversation/educational piece is Lizzy, a human skeleton from the late-1800s that sometimes daunts the younger visitors. But Beth is always there with a Mr. Rogers level of soft reassurance to alleviate any childlike apprehension. “Lizzy helped doctors learn how
