Kansas City

Minature Harpsicord that can play

We visited the Toy and Miniatures Museum today. We weren’t sure what to expect but this was an excellent museum. We spent most of our time looking at the Miniatures, fascinated by some of the intricate wood working, knitting, embroidery, and painting in such tiny dimensions. There were several video exhibits showing how this work is done. Many of the minatures were done for doll houses, which there are several on display, but others are just to recreate rooms from earlier times. 

Beacon Hill House 

Upstairs is the Toy Museum, which starts with a large section on dolls and doll houses, but also goes through the history of toy making. The story of German toy making from hand wood-working through the industrialization of toy making was interesting. A video showed how they started mass producing wooden horses, starting on a lathe to create a round cylinder with the basic shape. They hand-carved the rest. 

We had lunch at Gates on Main Street, famous for Kansas City Barbeque. The beef ribs and ham were really good, but we didn’t care for the brisket and the platter was more than either of us could eat. We should have split one. 

Excavating the wreckage

Then on to the Steamboat Arabia museum. A family and friends spent a million dollars finding and raising this wreck in the middle of a corn field. It was a Missouri River Boat which hit a tree snag and quickly sank in 1856. The boat was primarily bringing goods into Kansas and Nebraska to stock over 56 small general stores. So it was filled with the common goods of the day and it provides a picture of the pre-civil-war era. It gives a very different picture of Kansas, then what we get from our history books and movies. For example, lots of fine china were found, most goods were manufactured, not hand crafted, and all the women’s earrings were for pierced ears. What wasn’t found were the barrels of Kentucky bourbon that were supposed to have been on board. The iron steam engine and the paddle wheels were also intact, but most of the wood of the boat (except for the white oak used for stern, rudder and paddle wheels) had disintegrated. We even met a member of the family who raised the river boat.

Homegoods found 

On a previous trip, we did the World War I museum in KansasCity which I highly recommend.