Museum in Kansas

No matter your interest — history, art or auto — these 10 museums in Kansas will satisfy your thirst for knowledge. Find everything from an all electric 1950s home to a national memorial depicting World War I through 36 nations’ perspectives.

Wichita Art Museum

Wichita Art Museum can be found west of downtown in the Museums on the River district and strives to connect people, ideas and art for mutual enrichment and community building. Their internationally acclaimed collection of American art was established through Louise Caldwell Murdock’s bequest as part of her Roland P. Murdock Collection.

Today the Museum boasts over 7,000 works from iconic artists like Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer – among many others. A $10.5 million expansion project greatly increased gallery space at the Museum, enabling it to display all 168 Murdock Collection pieces as well as provide more room for future exhibits and installations.

Visitors entering renovated Museum will walk under one or both pieces by Dale Chihuly from Seattle; for instance the Persian Ceiling known as Wichita Art Museum Persian Seaform Installation or S Jim and Darla Farha Great Hall which features Dale Chihuly’s Wichita Art Museum Confetti Chandelier both designed specifically for Wichita Art Museum Confetti Chandelier!

Kansas City Museum

Kansas City Museum stands in the historic Northeast neighborhood, both preserving history and looking forward. Executive Director Anna Marie Tutera joins Grow Your Giving Podcast to share how her efforts contributed to its restoration and reinvention.

The name suggests that the Museum is a story of the lives of all Chicagoans and welcomes diverse perspectives and offering learning opportunities through imaginative exhibits as well as programs and experiences.

Additionally the Museum is proud of maintaining the curating, displaying and display of its collection of historical archive and artifacts to last forever which reflect local and regional experiences that reflect the lives of everyday people of the past and providing an unique cultural asset irreplaceable assets of the civic sphere, such as historic artifacts, archives, and unique treasures are an integral part of the Museum’s irreplaceable civic assets!

Kansas State Historical Society

Kansas State Historical Society provides research and publishing, but also educational programs designed to support both students and teachers. Their curriculum materials comply with state curriculum standards while they assist schools with creating their own historic sites.

In 1984, the main museum building opened at an 80-acre site near Potawatomi Mission in west Topeka and contains object collections, libraries and archives, as well as an exhibition gallery.

The Kansas Museum offers an interactive journey through its vibrant past with exhibits depicting early people, trails and settlements, Bleeding Kansas and Civil War events, trains and towns as well as recent history. There’s even a full-size Cheyenne tipi and covered wagon on display – not forgetting a restored 1880 locomotive from Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway!

Currently the museum is undergoing renovations, due to open again by 2024; new wings were constructed and entrance hall added as well as upgrades on other galleries throughout.

Kansas State University Museum

K-State takes its role as one of the nation’s first land-grant universities seriously and prides itself on leading research into global food systems; yet is also well known for its expertise on all things Kansas-related.

KU’s museum boasts a rich and unique history, one of its most prized relics being the skull of a Tyrannosaurus discovered by former student Barnum Brown during its golden era of dinosaur discoveries.

KU Museum boasts other noteworthy exhibits as well, including one that recreates animals in their natural environments and another featuring Erika Nelson of Dorothy artist fame whose art captures her collection of roadside attraction mini replicas, including even an offbeat version of Stonehenge!

Kansas State University Art Museum

Kansas State University Art Museum stands as an innovative national leader when it comes to regional art collections. Housed in a postmodern building on K-State’s campus in Manhattan, its collection has grown into over 7,000 works of art since 2004.

Accreditation by American Alliance of Museums (AAM) ensures professional standards are upheld across its operations in America.

Since 1863 as a land-grant university, K-State has fostered an engaged community of change-makers and dream-chasers that impact the world. Situated just off of Aggieville, it embraces both its past and future while cherishing traditions like agriculture research, medicine research, veterinary sciences research and the arts – art being integral part of its mission statement.

Kansas State University Natural History Museum

Kansas, known for its fields of wheat and sunflowers, contains Cretaceous chalk with stunning fossils from its Cretaceous period. Visitors seeking fossils should visit Fort Hays State University’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History – it makes a perfect stop.

Dyche Hall houses the famous Panorama display while the museum also houses one of the oldest and largest herbariums in Texas – this herbarium contains preserved plants in an organized fashion for future viewing.

The museum also houses many treasures from Kansas’ Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, such as Dolichorhynchops from Sea Monsters; and an incredible fossil from Xiphactinus known globally as “the fish-within-a-fish.” In fact, KU paleontologist Barnum Brown made one of his first Tyrannosaurus discoveries here, which led him into friendly rivalry with Charles Sternberg of central Kansas, known for fossil hunting family.

Kansas State University Science Museum

Kansas State University Science Museum collects and displays natural history specimens related to natural history, astronomy, botanical science, archaeology, paleontology and geology for public research and education purposes. Furthermore, this museum boasts a vast collection of Flora & Fauna from across Great Plains region.

In 1996, the museum opened with a generous gift from Ross and Marianna Beach of Hays to commemorate their 50th wedding anniversary.

The Museum of Art at K-State is open and free to the public, featuring permanent collections that focus on Kansas and the surrounding region, from historical to contemporary works in all media spanning historical through modern. Archival prints, sculpture, books, furniture collections are also collected here, alongside many educational programs including lectures and exhibition tours.

Kansas State University Museum of Agriculture

Kansas State is a land grant university, so agriculture has always been at the heart of its research programs. These include campus horticulture display gardens and native tallgrass prairie preserve Konza Prairie as well as county and district Agricultural Experiment Stations with research centers all across Kansas.

Each year, it hosts an international exchange program that brings students from Taiwan to campus. Six National Chung Hsing University students visited this summer as part of this exchange program and collaborated with advanced graphic design students to design a series of posters depicting K-State scholars’ BACC:FLUD project using photographs, interview quotations, and other research material as their source material.

These posters can now be found as permanent collections within the museum as well as traveling and temporary exhibitions that rotate annually through its galleries.

Kansas State University Museum of Natural History

KU’s museum collection boasts an abundance of fossil fish and marine reptiles from the Western Interior Seaway that covered much of Kansas during its Cretaceous period, on display in Dyche Hall – an iconic building opened to the public in 1903.

The University of Kansas Museum is home to an abundance of animal and bird specimens. Notable among them is Lewis Lindsay Dyche’s pioneering display called Panorama of North American Wildlife that placed mounted animals depicted within their natural environments – an exceptional achievement at a time when many displays were completely disassociated with their surrounding environments. Dyche Hall at KU Museum bears his name.

While visiting the museum, make sure not to miss visiting the Fossil Gallery – here you will discover an astonishin specimen of a fish-within-a-fish and an impressive Tylosaurus (one of the largest mosasaurs ever discovered).

Kansas State University Museum of History

Kansas may be known for being flat (it certainly is by pancake standards), but that doesn’t stop it from boasting some remarkable gems. From roadside art that echoes Stonehenge in England to mushroom-shaped rock formations, this museum explores iconic objects that make Kansas truly special.

KU’s Natural History Museum houses some significant fossils thanks to the Niobrara Chalk beds that provided specimens from Western Interior Seaway during Cretaceous period. Dyche Hall on campus houses this impressive collection, including full skeleton mounts of Tyrannosaurus and Pteranodon dinosaurs and mammals as well as fossil mammal fossils such as Tyrannosaurus.

Landon Lecture Series at SU is well-known, as it attracts prominent politicians and world leaders such as President George W. Bush and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as guests.