Arabia Steamboat Museum facts for kids
| Established | November 13, 1991 |
|---|---|
| Location | River Market, Kansas City, Missouri, United States |
| Type | History museum |
| Collections | Cargo of steamboat that sank in 1856 |
| Collection size | 200 tons |
The Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, is a special place that shows off amazing items found from the Arabia. This steamboat sank in the Missouri River way back in 1856. The museum is huge, about 30,000 square feet, and it opened on November 13, 1991. It's located in the Kansas City River Market. The museum is run by the same people who found and dug up the Arabia. They say they have the biggest collection of items from before the American Civil War anywhere in the world!
Contents
Discover the Steamboat Arabia
When you visit the museum, you'll first watch a few short videos. These videos tell the exciting story of how the Arabia sank and how its treasures were found. There's also a longer film called The Fall and Rise of the Steamboat Arabia you can watch.
What You'll See
After the films, you get to see all the amazing items that were found. There's even an open lab where museum staff work to clean and fix the artifacts. It takes a long time to restore these old items. Even a small nail can take over an hour! Shoes and boots can take up to three months to get ready for display.
You can also walk on a full-size model of the Arabia's main deck. It's 171 feet long! Here, you'll see videos of the digging process and learn more about the steamboat's history. You'll also see some of the original parts of the Arabia, like its boilers, engine, and anchor. There's even the skeleton of a mule that was on board! The museum also has the huge 6-ton back (stern) of the boat and a rebuilt paddle wheel.
Amazing Collections
The museum has hundreds of thousands of items. These were all meant for people living on the American frontier in 1856. Imagine finding over 4,000 boots and shoes, 247 hats, and 235 ax heads! They even found 29 jars of pickles, 328 pocket knives, and one children's doll. Most of these items were brand new and were being shipped to general stores on the frontier. The Wall Street Journal newspaper once called the collection "an Aladdin's cave of objects from the year 1856."
Special Exhibits
In 2013, the museum opened a new exhibit. It features the engine from the Missouri Packet. This was the very first steamboat to sink in the Missouri River back in 1820! The Hawley family, who found the Arabia, dug up this engine in 1987. David Hawley, one of the family members, said that an engine like this had never been shown before. He believes it's the oldest working steamboat engine in the United States.
In January 2013, the museum closed for a short time for the first time in 20 years. They fixed the ceiling and cleaned and organized all the displays to make them even better.
Traveling Treasures
In 2014, some of the museum's items went on a trip! About 2,000 objects from the Arabia were shown at the John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Arabia steamboat was actually built near Pittsburgh in 1853. So, the special show was called "Pittsburgh's Lost Steamboat: Treasures of the Arabia." Besides the artifacts, the exhibit also showed how the items were preserved. It even had a copy of the mule that was the only living thing lost when the boat sank.
The Story of the Arabia
The Arabia steamboat hit a hidden tree snag in the Missouri River and sank on September 5, 1856. Luckily, all 130 people on board survived! But about 220 tons of cargo went down with the boat. Soon after, the river changed its path, and the Arabia ended up buried deep underground.
The cargo was meant for 16 towns on the American frontier. It stayed buried under a cornfield in Wyandotte County, Kansas, for 132 years! Then, in 1988, a group of self-proclaimed treasure hunters called River Salvage Inc. found it. This group included David, Greg, and Bob Hawley, who owned a refrigeration repair business. They teamed up with Jerry Mackey and David Lutrell, along with family and friends.
With permission from the landowner, they dug up the steamboat between November 1988 and February 1989. At first, they wanted to sell what they found. But they quickly realized how important these historical items were. So, they decided to create a museum instead! Today, the Hawley family still owns and runs the museum. You can often find them there, greeting visitors and answering questions.
Keeping History Alive
After digging up the Arabia, the next big challenge was learning how to clean and save all the items. During the digging, things made of wood or leather were kept safe in blocks of ice. Larger wooden pieces, like the stern and paddle wheel, were put into a special pool.
The team learned how to preserve these items from experts around the world. For example, they learned from people working on the Mary Rose Trust in England. Things made of wood and leather are soaked in a special food preservative called polyethylene glycol (PEG) and then freeze-dried. Metal items are carefully cleaned with special tools. Bottled foods and drinks are filled with a gas called nitrogen to keep them from spoiling. Shoes, boots, and clothes need to be restitched because their original cotton thread dissolved in the water.
The work of preserving the collection is still happening at the museum today. It's a very long process, and it will likely take many more years to finish preserving everything!
Museum's Journey
The Arabia Steamboat Museum first opened its doors on November 13, 1991. The museum and its work were led by the Hawley family, including brothers Greg and David, and their parents, Bob and Florence. Greg, one of the brothers who found the Arabia, passed away in 2009. His parents, Bob and Florence, also passed away in later years. David, the other brother, continues to run the museum today.
The museum's current location in Kansas City is about 7 miles from where the Arabia sank. Their lease there ends in 2026.
There are plans to move and make the Arabia Steamboat Museum even bigger! In 2019, there was an idea to build a larger museum in Jefferson City, which is about 140 miles from the wreck site. In 2021, new plans were made to create the National Steamboat Museum at Marshall Junction, Missouri, about 77 miles from the wreck. These plans even include digging up five more steamboats to display!
See also
