Ottawa County Historical Museum The Ottawa County Museum in Minneapolis, Kansas is a pleasant surprise. Although the Ottawa County Museum has its fair share of whatever the people in town wanted to donate, the museum has a lot more information about the artifacts than most local historical museums. Many of the artifacts are next to magazine articles or other labels with details of what they were or how they were used. A large corner of the Ottawa County Museum is filled with exhibits about George Washington Carver, who lived in Minneapolis for several years as a boy. I particularly enjoyed listening to a recording of Carver from shortly before his death. His voice was high pitched, and I would have guessed that it was a woman speaking. Other exhibits of particular interest include Silvisaurus condrayi, a Kansas dinosaur with many fossils in Ottawa County, and the story of Grace Bedell and the letter she sent to Presidential candidate Abe Lincoln suggesting that he grow a beard. The curator of the Ottawa County Historical Museum, Jettie Condray, loves Kansas and Ottawa County history and added a lot to my enjoyment of the museum. I wish I could have stayed and talked with him longer.
Minneapolis's Rock City
copyright 2007-2024 by Keith Stokes |
