Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Old Cowtown Museum
    Old Cowtown Museum
    Old Cowtown Museum
    Ebook152 pages40 minutes

    Old Cowtown Museum

    By Keith Wondra and Barb Myers

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Old Cowtown Museum originally started as a shrine to the pioneers and founders of Wichita. It later reinvented itself according to Hollywood's version of the Old West. After the peak of Western films, the museum once again updated its theme to reflect Wichita's agricultural history. In recent years, Old Cowtown Museum has become a nationally recognized and accredited living history museum. A product of 1950s Old West nostalgia, it has become one of the most beloved of all of Wichita's museums and institutions. Inside this book is the story of how Old Cowtown Museum became the regional and cultural attraction it is today, along with images of the museum throughout its 66-year history, including people, events, and stories, many of which have never been published before.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 12, 2016
    ISBN9781439657768
    Old Cowtown Museum
    Author

    Keith Wondra

    Keith Wondra is a local author and award-winning photographer. His previous books include From the Land of Andalusia to the Wheat Fields of Kansas: A History of Wichita's Historic Orpheum Theatre, Kansas: In the Heart of Tornado Alley, and "Where the Old West Comes to Life": The Story of Old Cowtown Museum.

    Related to Old Cowtown Museum

    Related ebooks

    Photography For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Strike a Pose

      Feb 13, 2024

      Strike a Pose
      7 min read

    • Article

      Front Words

      Sep 15, 2022

      Front Words
      3 min read

    • Article

      Contemplating Commemoration

      Jun 4, 2021

      Contemplating Commemoration
      5 min read

    • Article

      New Statue of Liberty Museum

      Sep 24, 2019

      New Statue of Liberty Museum
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mosaic

      Mar 24, 2020

      Mosaic
      5 min read

    • Article

      Front Words

      Sep 15, 2023

      Happy 90th anniversary to City of Vancouver Archives. Its collection captures the city’s story through 7.2 million photographs, 6,800 maps, 2,800 audio recordings, documents measured in kilometres and terabytes of digital material. How did it begin?

      4 min read

    • Article

      Union Bay Historical Society

      Sep 3, 2019

      Union Bay Historical Society
      3 min read

    • Article

      Santa Fe Trail Highlights

      Aug 31, 2021

      Santa Fe Trail Highlights
      2 min read

    • Article

      Front Words

      Dec 15, 2023

      Front Words
      4 min read

    • Article

      Remembering Paldi

      Sep 4, 2021

      Remembering Paldi
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mosaic

      Jul 23, 2019

      Mosaic
      6 min read

    • Article

      LYTTON A Tale of Two Museums

      Jun 4, 2019

      LYTTON A Tale of Two Museums
      4 min read

    • Article

      Front Words

      Mar 15, 2024

      Front Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      Peacekeepers

      Oct 27, 2022

      Peacekeepers
      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Years of Books

      Sep 15, 2023

      This issue marks my fifth anniversary as books editor. In the spring of 2018, I opened the BCHF Buzz, the BC Historical Federation’s (BCHF) e-newsletter, and read that British Columbia History magazine was looking for help with the books section. Aft

      8 min read

    • Article

      Tracking Omaha’s Past

      Mar 24, 2020

      Tracking Omaha’s Past
      3 min read

    • Article

      You Can Leave Your Hat On

      Dec 27, 2023

      THE turning of the year has set us thinking on times past—and there’s plenty to commemorate in 2024. For reasons unfathomable, a 1970s prog-rock band named themselves after agriculturist Jethro Tull, born 350 years ago, without whom the British Agric

      4 min read

    • Article

      Looking Back 200 Years

      Mar 16, 2020

      Looking Back 200 Years
      4 min read

    • Article

      Events Of The West

      Nov 24, 2020

      Note: Due to the coronavirus shutdown, some events may be canceled or delayed The bicentennial of the founding of the Santa Fe Trail falls in 2021, as does the 35th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail Association (SFTA). The Bent’s Fort Chapter of the

      2 min read

    • Article

      Out On The Town

      Sep 24, 2019

      Out On The Town
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Old Cowtown Museum

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Old Cowtown Museum - Keith Wondra

      Sharp.

      INTRODUCTION

      Relive yesterday at historic Cowtown. Walk down the wooden sidewalks of the Old West. Take an excursion into the past. Walk down the wooden sidewalks of Wichita’s Cowtown. The hollow echoes of your boots will bring back memories of Jessie Chisholm and ‘Buffalo Bill’ Mathewson, who walked this way so long ago. Here is the Old West living on in these old frame buildings, bright and fresh with 20th-century paint but alive with old memories. So reads Relive Yesterday at Historic Cowtown, a brochure from the early 1960s about Wichita’s Old Cowtown Museum. The end of the brochure proclaims that there is fun at Cowtown as well as history, a theme that holds true in the museum’s promotional literature today.

      Richard Dick Long, manager of the Wichita Eagle morning edition, started in the 1940s writing the Wichita Historical Panels, articles on the city’s early history that appear in the Wichita Eagle with illustrations by Ben Hammond. Long’s articles coincided with several pieces of writing on Wichita’s history from Victor Murdock, son of the Wichita Eagle founder Marshall Murdock. Murdock’s and Long’s writings started an effort to preserve buildings from Wichita’s early history that would later become Old Cowtown Museum.

      It was at this same time that Long turned in an article on Wichita’s first church building being used as a boardinghouse in the 600 block of North Main Street. Murdock confirmed the story’s accuracy and contacted the owner, but due to wartime housing shortages, the building was not for sale. He predicted that once the war was over, the structure would be a fire hazard and be condemned. Long then made a promise to Murdock that if Victor was gone he would see that the building be restored. Victor Murdock died July 8, 1945.

      Long received word, a few years after Murdock’s death, that the former boardinghouse was being condemned due to a recent fire and that a salvage operator acquired the building. Long bought the building for $400 and included was the Hodge House, mistaken for years as the Parsonage. With their two new buildings, Long and others formed Historic Wichita, Inc. on April 28, 1950.

      Later, Historic Wichita, Inc. started looking for suitable locations for its two structures. It asked for help from the Wichita Park Board, which passed the decision on to Emery Cox, director of Wichita parks. Historic Wichita’s first choice was Central Riverside Park which was unattainable. The staff then drove to Oak Park, believing that they had worn the director down, but Cox explained that the city had put thousands of dollars into the area. A parking lot and historic buildings would ruin the atmosphere of the natural woodland. Director Cox suggested 23 acres of undeveloped sandhills by the Big Arkansas River owned by the Wichita Water Department. With the help of Cox, Historic Wichita, Inc. leased the land for 99 years at a dollar a year. Once the site had been chosen, preservation of the buildings could start.

      The restoration of the church and parsonage was barely complete when Historic Wichita, Inc. acquired two more buildings to preserve: the Munger House and Wichita’s first jail. The Eunice Sterling Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution saved the Munger House. It donated it to Historic Wichita, Inc. in hopes that the new organization could preserve it. When the Wichita School Board purchased land for a school expansion, it discovered the city’s first jail at Twelfth and Main Streets in 1951. The school board would not donate it, so it sold the deteriorating structure to Historic Wichita for $1. These four buildings became the foundation for a cow town village that would later become Old Cowtown Museum.

      From 1953 to 1955, Historic Wichita, Inc. relocated or erected six buildings to/on the site, including a depot from Anness, Kansas; a building from North Main that became interpreted as a drugstore; a replica of Wichita’s first school; the Cow Town Fire Station No. 1; a barbershop, built from the second story of the structure from North Main; and the Wichita Township Hall, which became a post office exhibit. With the 10 buildings, Historic Wichita, Inc. decided to

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1