Rest of the Museum

The train takes us into the 20th Century.Time is paid to famous Kansans like William Allen White,Jazz great Charlie Parker,General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower,The multi talented author,film director and photographer Gordan Parks. One dark spot in Kansas History is also covered, in some ways worse the the fact Missourians burned Lawrence twice in a 10 year period, worse than the crime waves of the Daltons,James, gangsters of the twenties. A grim episode , Carrie Nation achieved notoriety going into bars and smashing Kegs of Beer and alcohol. A Talk show host in Topeka expresses my feelings "who would want to hurt and innocent keg of beer." Indeed. I've probably spent more time on this sad episode and sad woman that it deserves, needless to say if in my travels I run across any Museums,murals,statues or childhood homes, I'm passing that one by.


Kansas is the home of the first female mayor of a US City.
Biography of Susanna Salter here:
http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1954/54_3_billington.htm

Kansas also featured one of the first female State officials in the country,Lorraine Elizabeth Wooster
http://cjonline.com/stories/010602/kan_wooster.shtml

http://www.kshs.org/portraits/wooster_lorraine.htm


A section of the Museum covers the 50's to the 80's. Kansas contribution to fast food is chronicled,Pizza Hut,Taco Tico,White Castle,Tony's Pizza and Red Baron Pizza are all Kansas Products. Anyone who lived in Topeka from the 50's to the 80's recognize the sign in the picture. McDonalds on Topeka Blvd (Ave) , long story on whether it's a Blvd or an Ave.It was one of the last of the drive ins in the McDonalds chain, you could order and go back to the car to eat. If it had indoor seating I don't recall.I remember the picnic tables to the east of the restaurant. It was a sad day when the restaurant modernized,but the new restaurant does pay tribute to the old and the sign of course is still with us.One of the original Golden Arches. To go back to the items discarded on the Trials , there is an exhibit with fast food wrappers discarded on highways as well.



A Pop Culture exhibit has everything from a pong game to one of the first home computers. A Newspaper and cups document the Kansas City Royals World Series win in 1985. A George Brett for President bumper is there.TV Camera from the 50's, a plan made by Boeing in Wichita and many,many other things are there. There is a CD from the group Kansas, local boys who made good in the 70's with hits 'Carry on my Wayward Son','Point of No Return' and 'Dust in the Wind'. They are duly honored, but the CD is for "Power", one their worst albums and worst selling.If anybody knows any of the members, couldn't they donate a Gold Album or something from "Leftover" or "Point of No Return" or "Best of ..."



The temporary exhibit is Natural Disasters of Kansas and features an amazing video of Storm Chasers in Mulvane,2004. Some of the best unedited footage I've ever seen of a Tornado dropping from the clouds. The rest of exhibit covers major Tornadoes,flood, fires,snow storms.Pretty interesting. You can go into a booth and record your own stories which the Achieves will have on file.



The Museum is only 1 arm of the Historical Society, I've linked to on line sources, William Allen White's house visited last month is run by the society,they have a wonderful site on Territorial Kansas :
http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/cgiwrap/imlskto/index.php

So It rained, I would have rather been in Pott County looking for Wagon Ruts but it was a pretty good afternoon.

Rainy Saturday

I will admit on these adventures that I am a wimp.The Plan for today was for me to visit at least 5 little towns in Pottawatomie County, the County that borders Shawnee County to the North and West.Possible areas of exploration included a 290 year oak tree,a WW1 doubghboy statue,several building in desperate need of restoration that if the websites I was looking at are out of day,they may not be there.Wamego is the home of an incredible looking (from the pictures anyway) park anchored at one end by a Dutch Windmill.



It rained in the morning and didn't stop afternoon,it was an inch in my mom's rain gauge and that was before it stopped.It wasn't a threatening thunderstorm,it was more like a fall rain.I envisioned myself in a few hours at the Oregon Trail Nature Park looking for wagon ruts in a muddy field. Everything plans was outdoors,so I went to Plan B, a local attraction of building that had been moved to a site, a bluff overlooking 1-70 here in Topeka.That seemed to be a lot of time walking around outdoors and that suddenly seemed to rate 0 on the fun scale. So I went to Plan C,which I made up on the fly.I visited the Kansas State Historical Society Museum.



Located off the 1-70 Wanamaker exit,for some reason Topeka had decided to build almost every store and theme restaurant on Wanamaker,so they Museum sits tucked away from Shopping paradise in a small valley set against the first miles laid of 1-70 in the 50's.The grounds occupy a Nature Trail (Rain,didn't go), a Pottawatomie Mission and the State Achieves and Museum.



I had seen this several years ago,but among the donation is the desk used by Lou Grant in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".Lou Grant was given life in several Emmy winning performances by Edward Asner,a Wyandotte County native.
http://www.kshs.org/cool3/asnerdesk.htm

The desk is not current in display. They feature a themed exhibit every year,previous years included Bleeding Kansas in 2004 (sesquicentennial year), Kansas in the Movies ,Sports in the movies, and this year Natural Disaster (more later).




The regular part of the Musuem is divided into Rooms covering in order the History of Kansas from Indians,Coronado to a display of Pop Culture from the 70's and 80's.Indian Artifacts include a life size Ti pi and Mud Hut. Arrowheads,broken pots,hatchets and maps detailing the migration forced and otherwise of Indian Tribes.

From Coronado to Lewis and Clark to the Santa Fe/Oregon/California Trails with a Life sized Conestoga Wagon to a Buffalo which as the display case says "What they saw". An exhibit tells of how travels had to discard what they were carrying along the way, a house clock, a chair and tea cups are enclosed in the display , I always wonder if the settlers throwing out something that meant so much to them could have ever imagined it would end up in a museum some day, and for that matter why some else didn't pick it up.


Then of course we come to bleeding Kansas, after reading so much lately about the bogus elections,It was a thrill to see a wooden ballot box and the multi colored ballots used. In the picture we see a hopeful flag pleading for Kansas to be the 34th Star "Admit Me Free" it implores.The Cannon was used in the sack of Lawrence in 1856and a tombstone of someone who didn't make it out of Bleeding Kansas.

The display also features a Chair John Brown sat on,various flags ,banners and guns of course.The display focusing on the Underground features a barrel where a runaway slave hid for 6 Weeks.Then we move into the Civil War ,the Immigration wave and the railroad.


To anyone who can't tell the train pictured below is indoors,It was a major media story when it was brought inside in the late 80's or early 90's.It's an actual train engine and two or three cars.With good reason it's one of the most popular exhibits in the museum,you can walk beside the train and look in. The back car is a passage car and you can walk through that car.I wish they would allow you to walk through the sleep or the engine. Along the side are various displays talking about Harvey House restaurants, train depots, conductor uniforms and other exhibits detailing the train experience of the late 19th and early 20th Century.



To be continued ....