The Kansas City Museum

 Kansas City, MO

My selfie wide angle just wasn't wide enough this time

The Kansas City Museum

Today we went for a 2.5 mile drive, because the bus ride would have taken an hour, to the Kansas City Museum.  (At this point in the blog I know you are getting excited and maybe even hyperventilating a bit, but please temper your excitement.  It was just an okay museum.)  This museum is housed in a four-story historic Beaux-Arts style mansion named Corinthian Hall originally owned by American Lumber Baron, Robert A. Long.  He formed Longview, LA and began cutting trees down.  When he ran out of trees in Louisiana, he went on to form Longview, WA.  In Washington he realized the error of his ways and became a pioneer of reforestation as he cut down all of the old growth trees for profit.

As we entered the museum we were greeted and told a bit about the building and museum.  It's a really pretty mansion and they have a few of the original pieces of furniture scattered throughout the first floor.  The basement and the top two floors are dedicated to Kansas City history.

They don't state that they have 999 ghosts so I assume they have fewer than that.

They recreated the wallpaper that was originally on the walls.  

This original stained glass window was amazing.

There was contemporary art placed throughout the building.  The seemingly random choices of where the pieces went didn't really work for me.

After seeing the first floor, we moved on up to the 2nd and 3rd floor where the history is.  Each room takes you through a time period and talks about the struggles and victories within that time. 

It felt like most of the museum consisted of these information boards with a few pictures that weren't big enough for me.  I mostly took photos so I could do research about the areas that interested me once I got home.

The Hannibal Bridge that exists now is the 2nd version.

I learned that Clark's family owned slaves and at least one, York, went on the expedition.  York was a vital member of the expedition and had equal say during some of the decision making, but it still took 10 additional years of being a slave after the expedition before he was freed.

We saw more art by Mona Cliff (we saw some of her work at The Nelson)

There was a room devoted to segregated living in Kansas City.  Missouri was a slave state and Kansas was not.  

I took this photo so I could remember to look up music by Bennie Moten.

And music by Julia Lee.

The coin operated perfume dispenser was born and died in the KC area.

Normal Rockwell did a piece on the rebuilding of Kansas City after the 1951 flood.

In 1951 heavy rains lead to the Kansas River and the Missouri River overflowing their banks and flooding the greater Kansas City area.  Damage was extensive and like many great cities, led to the destruction and rebuild.  Wikipedia

Burning oil drums floated on the flood

An image of the flood from the museum looking towards where we are staying

A photo I took the other day looking out over the area that was flooded in 1951

TWA started out in Kansas City

More contemporary art in the mix

They had some of Donald Piper's medical collection on display

There were cool murals in the side stairwells

Heading upstairs to more modern history

On July 17th, 1981, only a year after opening, The Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel suffered a structural collapse of two overhead walkways killing 114 and injuring 216.

LET ME IN!

This was the first museum that we have been to that allowed you to play pool in the game room.

Another original stained glass window remains in the area that is now the gift shop

Protip, put this on a T-shirt and TAKE MY MONEY!

I liked the "KC, too much city for one state" slogan

That was today's adventure.  It was a free museum that was just okay.  It's hard to compete with The Nelson-Atkins though.  All in all the free museum game is strong in the KC area.

If you missed yesterday's post about how we had to change our plan for November check it out here.