Arabia Steamboat Museum – America’s Best Museums

One of my favorite museums is nestled in the heart of the City Market District of Kansas City amidst a vibrant area known for its farmers’ market, shops, and restaurants. You’ll find the fascinating  Arabia Steamboat Museum. As you walk through the doors, you’ll find yourself stepping back in time in a way you’ve never done before.

In 1856, a mirror, five years before the beginning of the Civil War, steamboat Arabia was heavily laden with travelers and consumer goods being taken to people living on the western frontier. Sailing through the turbulent waters, the Steamboat Arabia sank, disappearing beneath the muddy waters of the mighty Missouri River. Fortunately, all the passengers were saved; the only casualty was a donkey.

For 132 years, the Arabia remained hidden, an underwater time capsule preserving a bygone era.

In 1987, a group of modern-day treasure hunters, led by Bob Hawley, David Luttrell, Greg Hawley, and Jerry Mackey, embarked on a daring mission to locate the lost Steamboat Arabia. Armed with historical maps and an unyielding determination, they defied the river’s twists and turns, eventually hitting a proverbial jackpot. They found the Arabia deep below a field, nearly a half-mile from the present-day river! The river’s currents had shifted its path, foiling the attempts of generations of treasure hunters to find Arabia! The excavation that followed unearthed a trove of remarkably preserved artifacts, offering an unparalleled glimpse into 19th-century frontier life.

The fascinating Arabia Steamboat Museum allows you to see the original color of dresses being ordered by women living in the west, beautiful silverware and fancy china snd dishes meant to be the centerpiece of a western home, books, and shoes, and keepsakes, magnificently preserved.

When my son and I visited, we had the great good fortune of being escorted by one of the original explorers.

He told us that one of the most astonishing finds were containers of pickles, perfectly preserved in brine after over a century. After checking with university-based experts, to everyone’s great surprise, it was determined the pickles were still edible! Carefully documented photographs showed the opening of one container. The pickles retained their original color and aroma, and the explorers each ate one!

In answer to my inevitable question, he responded, “It tasted just like a pickle!” Then, he pointed out that experts from the Smithsonian declared that the photographs were the first and only known color photographs of crops grown before the Civil War. This unexpected culinary time capsule symbolizes the museum’s ability to bring the past to life in unexpected and delightful ways.

The aromatic journey doesn’t end there. Intact bottles of perfume discovered in the wreckage prompted a collaboration with chemists. The fragrances were recreated through meticulous laboratory analysis, allowing visitors to experience the exact scents that graced the olfactory landscape of the mid-1800s. It’s a sensory exploration that adds a unique and immersive dimension to the museum experience.

The Arabia Steamboat Museum’s rich historical narrative and remarkable artifacts offer a captivating journey through time. The museum is a treasure trove of surprises, from the thrill of the search and discovery to the unexpected delight of edible pickles and recreated perfumes. Each artifact tells a story, and together, they weave a tapestry of frontier life that captivates visitors and invites them to step back in time. It’s a living testament to the power of exploration, preservation, and the enduring magic of uncovering the past.