Happy 35th Birthday!
Vision…From W.B. Strang, founder of Overland Park and the Interurban Line to citizens who banded together in the early 1950s to advocate for needed services like the county library system and the parks and recreation district, Johnson County has been shaped by community visionaries. The many citizens who saw a need to preserve and recognize the history and heritage of the early Johnson County settlers pursued a vision leading to our current institution. As the Johnson County Museums celebrate our 35th year anniversary, we take a look back at our own history and the visionaries that designed and shaped our institution.
The Early Years
By 1930, the Shawnee Indian Mission, founded by the Methodist Reverend Thomas Johnson in 1830, was in ill repair. Many of the original brick structures were in serious need of preservation. Concerned about the historical buildings, a group of citizens banded together to preserve the mission. The group was quite successful and in the late 1930s, the first restoration of the buildings took place. The Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society continued to grow in size and influence. By 1959, the organization had grown to the level of accepting items of historical significance not related to the story of the Methodist mission. They incorporated and began to contemplate how best to care for the many items with significance to the county’s story and which were stored in their homes.
Marguerite Barkley, president of the Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society, approached the Johnson County Commission in 1963 about establishing a local county history museum. The Society proposed a one-tenth mill levy to support the new museum. Barkley explained to the commissioners that more donations had been promised if a museum were built. The commissioners agreed to the mill levy proposal.
Now a building was needed. The county commission approved the 1964 purchase of the former Greenwood School at 63rd and Lackman Road for the purpose of the museum. The school district had sold the school in 1960s to the Greenwood Baptist Church, which had been using the building for services until a new church could be constructed. The county purchased the school from the church for the sum of $14,200. Work began immediately to turn the school into a museum. A parking lot and driveway were poured and a new roof, doors and gutters were installed. The upper floor, which had been classrooms, became the exhibit area. The lower level, once used as the school cafeteria, served as a meeting room and an apartment for the newly hired caretakers – Clayton and Mary Bean. The Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society became the legal supervisors of the historical collection and supervised the operation of the museum, which officially opened its doors on October 29, 1967. The institution began receiving donations from the community immediately.
At the same time that the Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society was working to establish a historical museum in the northern part of the county, a group in southern McCamish Township was also working to establish a museum in another vacant schoolhouse. The Lanesfield School had continuously served the rural community as a school for 94 years, until its closing in 1963. The local Dizzy Doers Extension Group developed a plan to establish a local museum in the former building. They worked with the County Commission to acquire the stone structure from the Edgerton School District. The sale was made final in 1966 for the sum of one dollar.
They soon established the Lanesfield School Historical Society as an incorporated non-profit group and quickly transformed the school to house exhibits. Local citizens soon began to bring donations to the museum, and the exhibit highlighting Gardner Doctor A.S. Reece became the most popular one. Dr. Reece was a prominent physician and established the first hospital in Johnson County in Gardner in the late 1930s. The Lanesfield Historical Society also hired a caretaker to manage the site, which opened to the public in 1967.
Both museums operated independently for nearly twenty years and both museums collected a wealth of objects and photographs related to the county’s history. However, by the mid-1980s, the County Commission saw a need for change. The Lanesfield School Museum only served 360 people a year. The historical museum in Shawnee had grown a great deal in size, with seven additions made to the facility between 1970-1981, but was also an underutilized facility. The commission’s intentions were to enable the county museums to better serve the public.
A New Vision
To accomplish that goal, the Board of County Commissioners repealed the supervisory roles of both the Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society and the Lanesfield School Historical Society and in 1986 established the Museum Advisory Council to oversee the newly named Johnson County Museum System. The Museum Advisory Council’s first action was to determine if a full-time museum director position was needed to further the mission of the Museum System.
Janet Bruce Campbell was hired in 1987 to serve as the first director. A number of actions took place in her first year of service including hiring additional staff and developing the first strategic plan. Another important development occurred in 1987: the creation of the Friends of Johnson County Museums, a non-profit organization established to provide additional support for the Museum System. The Friends, governed by a Board of Trustees, provided advocacy and fund raising for the institution.
The strategic plan outlined the restoration of the Lanesfield School building as a top priority. The north wall of the stone schoolhouse was close to collapsing and was in need of immediate attention to stabilize the structure. The staff and Museum Advisory Council also had to determine how best to utilize the building. There was not a need to maintain two separate local history museums and so the decision was made to restore the schoolhouse and operate it as a one-room school museum. A master plan was developed which included the restored schoolhouse, a visitors center to provide an exhibit on one-room schools across Kansas and modern restroom facilities. Restoration of the structure took first priority and in 1989, the Lanesfield School Historic Site reopened to the public and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Three years later, in 1992, the visitors center was dedicated.
With the Lanesfield School Historic Site successfully operating, the museum staff and boards turned their attention to the historical museum, renamed the Johnson County Museum of History. An updated strategic plan, drafted in 1992, charged the institution with developing exhibits that would provide county residents with a greater understanding of the history and heritage of Johnson County from its beginnings. For the next six years, the staff worked with the local community and national scholars to research local history, design a layout, and identify objects in the collection or needed from the community to “tell” the Johnson County story. Staff and Friends members raised money to make the plan a reality. This effort culminated in a new permanent exhibit at the Museum of History called Seeking the Good Life, which opened in 1998. The exhibit, presented in nearly 6,000 square feet of space, demonstrates how the ‘good life’ was defined by various Johnson Countians over our history and how these visions have changed over time.
A unique opportunity presented itself to the Johnson County Museums during the development of the new exhibit. In 1994, Marty and Patti Bauer offered their 1950s ranch-style home as a donation to be used as a museum. The home had originally served as a model home by Kansas City Power & Light and was the first completely electric home built in the metropolitan area. The home showcased a variety of electrical innovations and nicely illustrated the story of post World War II suburban growth in Johnson County. Of particular significance were the papers that had been passed from owner to owner. Construction documents, furnishing plans and receipts, photographs, and newspaper clippings gave an accurate picture to shape the restoration.
The Johnson County Museums accepted the donation and moved the house to the Johnson County Museum of History grounds in 1994. The house was then restored to its original 1954 appearance and opened simultaneous with the Seeking the Good Life exhibit in 1998. The house was the third facility for the Museums and it has been praised as the first 1950s residential structure in the United States to be preserved for the future.
Today and Tomorrow
Since opening in 1967, the Johnson County Museums has changed and grown in many new directions while remaining dedicated to its core mission: preserving and sharing the history of the county with the public. Today the museum employs eight full-time and three part-time staff members and is supported by a volunteer corps 60+ members strong.
Volunteers play critical roles from serving on boards, conducting tours of the 1950s All-Electric House, assisting with educational programs at the historic sites, processing the museum’s collection and research materials, and many other needed tasks. Their support and assistance provide immeasurable value to the institution.
Members of the community also continue to donate their belongings and the stories related to those objects and photographs. These artifacts and photos are truly the heart of the Johnson County Museums and enable the history of the county to be illustrated for the public to enjoy through publications, programs and exhibits.
In celebration of the 35th anniversary, the Museums present the latest exhibit Collecting A to Z, beginning June 29 and continuing through November 3, 2002, at the Museum of History. The exhibit is a fun and eclectic look at what the museum has collected over its 35-year history and why. It features 150 artifacts from the museum’s collection, ranging in age from an 1874 Atlas to a 9/11 sweatshirt; in size from a telephone switchboard to Victorian baby shoes; in elegance from an 1888 brown velvet wedding dress to Whizzo the Clown’s shoes. There’s a zebra skin rug, go-go boots, maternity corset, shag rug rake and tiara. And much, much, more.
In the show the artifacts are grouped by alphabetical categories such as A is for Animals, D is for Dirt and U is for Undergarments. An example of one of the quirkiest groupings is I is for Irons, displaying a waffle iron, curling iron, branding iron and clothes iron. While being extremely visual, the exhibit also strives to help the public to understand why museums collect things. In each grouping, one object is highlighted to show its background and demonstrate why the item has become part of the collection. An example is the microwave featured in the K is for Kitchen section. Used by the Lowry family in the late 1960s, it illustrates what the early home appliance looked like. It is twice the size of a microwave of today’s standard and sports dials rather than an electronic touch panel. The oven illustrates growth and improvements in technology over the decades.
Another highlighted artifact is the switchboard used in Spring Hill starting circa 1910. Mildred Wisner was one of the many women who worked the switchboard, which was used until 1959. Advanced telephone technology did not come quickly to Spring Hill. The Y for You’ve Got Mail section features Mr. Zip and a laptop computer. Mr. Zip, the mascot for the Post Office’s debut of the zip code system appeared in Olathe in the 1960s. The laptop recently retired from delivering e-mail messages for Johnson County government. The two artifacts show the expansion of communication services.
To date the Museums is guardian for 13,000 objects and 12,000 photographs. Family artifacts, community business promotions, oral histories, formal portraits of governors, and everyday snapshots of family events—they all play an integral role in our collection. The Museums continues to collect objects that define Johnson County past, present and future. The Johnson County Museums board and staff is dedicated to the belief that we can learn from the past to understand better the present and the future. It’s the same vision as those citizens who helped mold the institution along our 35-year history.
--ALBUM vol. 15, no. 2 (spring 2002)