Kansas Museum of History on track to reopen in fall with renovations nearly complete

TOPEKA — Kansas Museum of History director Sarah Bell says she has had “so many” teachers calling her office wanting to know when they can start planning museum field trips again.

“They’re itching to get back in there,” Bell said.

The museum, housed inside the same building as the Kansas Historical Society administrative offices and state archives, has been closed since September 2022 for renovation. After more than two years of work, Bell said she is confident the museum will open this fall — just in time for students and teachers to return to class after summer break.

“The K-12 audience is one of our largest audiences,” Bell said.

Bell began her role as museum director in the same month the museum closed, so her time has been “in step” with the construction changes. She said the first step was to carefully remove about 3,000 artifacts from the main museum gallery and put them into storage. Curators will put back “about the same number,” Bell said, because of building limitations. There is 20,000 square feet of gallery space.

“We’re keeping the same square footage, but the interior will be completely different,” Bell said.

Kansas Historical Society maintenance crews and staff handled most of the construction work, including clearing out the 7,000 square-foot lobby. Designers with the Overland Park firm Dimensional Innovations are creating and engineering the new exhibits.

Bell said the new gallery will be thematically based, compared to the old gallery, which was structured chronologically through state history. This method allows more in-depth storytelling within exhibits and opportunities to showcase a portion of the 122,000 artifacts in the museum’s collection, Bell said.

“One of the benefits of a thematic structure is you don’t have to wait until the very end to add new stories,” Bell said. “We can make updates throughout the gallery much easier than before.”

While Bell’s top focus is the content of the revamped gallery, crews with Cold Creek Construction in Topeka are finishing the backdrop walls for the exhibits. Those should be completed this spring. Some favorite artifacts, such as the steam locomotive and the log cabin, will return, and Bell said the Cold Creek crews are installing a feature that will “provide some new perspective” on old artifacts.

“We know we are the material culture depository for Kansas history,” Bell said, “and we want to reflect that culture.”

Virtual tours of the old museum are available on the Kansas Historical Society website.

Additionally, the historical society and the Kansas Anthropological Association are holding another summer of the Kansas Archaeology Training Program field school. This year’s hands-on field school will be June 6-15 in Lecompton.

State archaeologist Nikki Klarmann said the field school will focus on cleaning, processing and cataloguing materials collected around a structure built during the Kansas territorial period.

All field school participants must attend classes for orientation and archaeological principles. The classes are four hours long and are scheduled daily. Participants can attend just one day or all 10 days of the program.

Field school registration begins March 1 and is open to people ages 12 and over. Information can be found on the Kansas Historical Society website.