I visited a “historic” law office recently. It was filled with artifacts.

Here’s what I saw:

• File cabinets. Big ones—legal sized. There was a room with file cabinets lining the wall. There had to be eight or nine of them in the room. It felt cramped in there like I was sharing the room with a sumo wrestler. The file cabinets looked like they must weigh 1,000 pounds each. It was impressive in the same way that seeing Mt. Rushmore is impressive.
• Files. Yep, those file cabinets were filled with them, but there were more of them scattered all over the place. I saw them sitting on desks, in piles on the floor, and on the counter at the reception desk. It was super cool. It was like they had been left sitting right where they were a decade ago when the rest of us stopped using them. I wrote my name in the dust on one of the folders.
• Paper. Inside those file folders were pieces of paper with text on them. They used staples to hold the sheets together. Of course, the text is fading, but it’s holding up pretty well for its age.
• Paper calendars. Remember those desktop calendars with a page for each day? I’d forgotten them. They’re really neat. I remember when they used to make software that kind of looked like the old paper calendars.
• Typewriter. Clickity, click. These are machines used to print words on paper. They’re a combination of your laptop keyboard and a printer, and they produce one character at a time. They’re slow but reliable. At this museum, they even let us touch the keys. It sent chills up my spine to be touching something used in the law offices of yesteryear.
• Desk phones. These fascinating oddities sat on all the desks. There were two of them in the conference rooms, and they had these long circular handset cords hanging from them. What a treat to see so many of them gathered in one place.
• Answering machine. Near one of the phones was a telephone answering machine. When no one picks up the phone, it answers for you and records a message. I love it.
• Desktop computers. I had no idea any of them had been preserved, but this law office had several. There was one at the front desk and another in a lawyer’s office. There were cables coming out of them, and they plugged into the wall.
• Ethernet cables. Do you remember these? They plugged into the wall and into the back of a computer or printer to connect to the Internet back in the days before wireless. They used to come in pretty colors. This office had some blue ones and some green ones. Beautiful. I took pictures with my phone.
• Fax machine. OMG, I was so lucky to get to see one of these. I figured they had all been destroyed, but this one was well preserved and sat in what appeared to be a mini-shrine. It was on a pedestal with supplies neatly organized underneath. I tried to stick around long enough to see an actual fax come in, but the next show wasn’t scheduled until late in the day.
• Books. I miss the smell of books. I got my fill on the tour. There were statute books, case reporters, and treatises. Most of them were well preserved. Of course, they didn’t let us touch them, but it was really cool to be reminded of how books smell and what they look like.

I’m not usually a huge museum person. I get bored with paintings and the endless displays of bowls. But this museum, the historic law office, was endlessly fascinating. I can’t wait to go see another one. I wonder whether there are others around the world?