Busy day seeing the sights of Liberal KS today. We started this morning in the Seward County Historical Society building which is located next door to Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz Museum. You can see it in the background here:
It was originally built in 1917-1918 and was the residence of a local family until they passed away when it was eventually donated to the historical society. There are two floors of displays from the early years of Liberal KS. We explored the displays while waiting for our guided tour of the Oz exhibits.
Soon our tour started so we made our way down the yellow brick road to Dorothy's House. I asked our tour guide about how this all came to be, and just to clarify:
- None of the Wizard of Oz was ever filmed here
- None of the structures were used in the movie
- None of the artifacts on display in the museum were used in the movie
OK, now that we have that sorted out, on with the tour! Down the yellow brick road we strolled to the house. There were many notable bricks such as this one from Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's (Dorothy's) daughter.
The structure called "Dorothy's House" was a local farm house and was moved to this location in 1981 as they built up the museum and Liberal became the official home of Dorothy Gale, the young lady in the Wizard of Oz. It has a small bedroom, a living area, a kitchen, a pantry and a "mud room". It is supposed to be period-correct and a replica of the house in the movie.
The pantry
The kitchen
Dorothy's bedroom
The living room
From here our tour guide took us to a large building behind the house that houses the Land of Oz museum. The Land of Oz is laid out as the movie is with interactive displays the amplify the sights and sounds seen in the movie. A few pictures:
The final room we entered was full of Wizard of Oz memorabilia of all kinds.
The Wizard of Oz was never one of my favorites but I believe Doreen really enjoyed the entire experience!
While we were near downtown we stopped by the Rock Island Depot. This whole area has a huge train history and they have done a great job of restoring the depot building. I thought we would be seeing another museum with artifacts but instead it is a restaurant. Still nicely done!
Last stop for today was the Mid-America Air Museum which is located in an 80,000sf former Beechcraft factory building at the airport. They have 109 military and civilian aircraft on display and very well done! Most are inside but they have few out on the ramp. They are supposedly the largest aviation museum in Kansas, right here in Liberal! Again, why Liberal? Actually Liberal has a long history ties to aviation beginning in 1943 when Liberal was home to the Liberal Army Airfield, a training base for the B-24 Liberator. By the time the base closed in 1945, nearly one-third of all B-24 command pilots had received their training in Liberal. After that, in 1951 Beechcraft arrived in Liberal and by the 1970’s it operated a major assembly plant in Liberal on the old Army Airfield location. The plant produced a number of light aircraft models, including the Musketeer, Sundowner, Sport 150, Skipper, and the Beechcraft Duchess. A few pictures:
9/11 display
Vought F4U Corsair
Grummund TBM Avenger
B25 Mitchell Bomber
The restoration area
We moved outside the look at the aircraft on the ramp, and the first one we came to was an LTV A-7E Corsair II similar to the A-7D/K aircraft that the 132d Fighter Wing was flying in Des Moines when I joined the Air National Guard. This jet was from Ohio and is in rough shape.
Republic F-105G Thunderchief
That's it for today. Later we headed back into town and washed the truck and then returned to the campground for the evening. Tomorrow we will visit the Samson of the Cimarron railroad bridge and then to Meade KS to visit the Dalton Gang Hideout museum.
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