Another place we visited while staying in
Oakley, Kansas, was the Prairie Museum of Art and History in
nearby Colby, Kansas.
The museum is different in that it presents Kansas prairie life
using several venues. There is the Pyramid, as it is called due
to its shape, and there is the Prairie Living Site. The Prairie
Living Site consists of several buildings. There is the Eller
House which depicts a typical 1930's farm house. Surrounding the
house they have a large homestead garden that features many
heirloom, or open pollinated garden plants that would have been
grown to feed the pioneer family and livestock. A major part of
the exhibit is the Cooper Barn, a barn listed as "the
largest barn in Kansas". It sure looked like it to me. This
barn measures 66 feet wide, 114 feet long and 48 feet high. There
were a number of old farm implements displayed inside as well as
several cars. Down from the barn was the Nicol School. It
symbolizes the one-room country school houses that were used to
educate the many children living on the prairie. Next we saw a
sod home. The sod home was there to show the ingenuity of the
homesteaders in the late 19th century. This particular sod house
was constructed by volunteers in 1984. Also shown was the Lone
Star Presbyterian Church which was a vital part of the lives of
the people living on the prairie. There were also farm animals in
the livestock pen next to
the Vacin Barn (near the house). What was really neat is that
everything was open and you were allowed to wander anywhere you
wanted. After our tour of the outside we wandered into the
strange looking Pyramid Museum. We found out that the Museum is
distinguished as one of the finest museums in the Midwest. The
story behind the Museum started when Joseph Kuska came to Colby
in 1913. He eventually met and married Nellie McVey in 1917, who
was a teacher in the local schools. Both became avid collectors
of a number of things over the years. In 1957, Joe and Nellie,
moved to California to be near their three sons and their
families. Since they were such avid collectors and had so many
things, they opened a museum near their home in Lomita,
California. They continued to add to the collection and operated
the museum until Nellie's death in 1973. In 1975 the Kuska
Foundation donated their collection to the people of Thomas
county. The collection took
more than three moving van to move the seventeen tons of
artifacts to Colby. That's right! I said 17 tons. I can't imagine
that those folk every threw away anything in their lifetime. I
was impressed. The Smithsonian appraised the collection at the
time, at a value of more than one million dollars. Included in
their collection were glass, furniture, ceramics, toys, dolls,
stamps, clocks, coins, quilts, silver, jewelry, and rugs. In
addition to all the collections we further learned that the
Pyramid building itself was designed by their son George Kuska.
It is a 21,500 square foot pyramid faced in blue. An earth berm,
planted with native buffalo grass, encircles the building to
blend with the surrounding prairie. The collection wasn't
actually moved into this building until Mary 24, 1988, when the
building was completed and dedicated. Also, in the museum is a
Gallery which highlights some famous entertainers that came from
the Colby area.
The museum's inventory numbers 28,000 pieces from the Kuska
collection plus an additional 10,000 local history artifacts. At
the present time only approximately five percent of these
holdings are on exhibit. The gallery space is gradually being
expanded to include all the items. As the gallery is rearranged,
the old cases are currently filled with an array of pieces which
represent the breadth of the collection. Because the Kuska
Collection came with little documentation, a great deal of
research is required to develop the exhibition of a greater
number of artifacts.
There is a gallery of 16th century Meissen, Europe's first and
most important hard paste porcelain factory. Some famous doll
makers represented in the collection include Jumeau, Ravca,
Marseille, Clears and Schoenhut, Lenci, and Mattel. There are
china, bisque, composition, parian, paper, and wooden dolls. One
of the prized dolls on exhibit is a rare French
doll signed, "Rocharde." This doll has a necklace, that
when viewed closely, show magnified pictures of famous paintings
in the "beads." Another doll is a rare mechanical
French Juneau called "The Sorceress." The beautiful
bisque doll turns her head and waves her wand as three small
dolls take turns appearing. At the end of the game, the little
girl blows a kiss. A French tune plays during the shell game. The
dolls called "All Nations Figurines," were commissioned
by the Roosevelt's WPA program in the 1930's. Also on display is
a permanent exhibit of wedding dresses entitled, Something
Borrowed, Something Blue: Wedding Traditions. The dresses are
machine made and span a period of time from the late 1800s to the
1980s. The Home Sweet Home exhibit showcases a variety of
furniture styles from provincial to vernacular.
A new exhibit area, Glorious Glass, was opened in October 1998 to
display nearly 1,000 pieces of cut, pressed,
molded and blown glass. The impressive variety of glass includes
examples of exquisite art glass of Galle, Burmese, Peachblow,
Rubina, Quilted Mother of Pearl, Satin Glass, tortoise-shell,
vaseline and Millefiori. Makers include Steigel, Sandwich,
Steuben and Tiffany.
As I wandered from room to room I just kept wondering how anyone
could collect this many things in their lifetime. Just the time
to buy each one of these would take time. I was very impressed
and more than a little surprised to find a museum like this on
the plains of Kansas. If you find yourself traveling across
Kansas on I-70 by all means take the time to stop by Colby and
take a look at their Prairie Museum. If you'd like to have a
preview drop by their website at: www.prairiemuseum.org.
Laura