Soon to be 20 years old and maturing graciously.
That’s the National Frontier Trails Museum, which celebrates two decades as a museum, interpretive center and research library on Saturday, April 10, and Sunday, April 11.
Dedicated to telling “the rich history of America’s principle western trails,” the Independence museum, 318 W. Pacific Ave., will open its doors – free to the public – on that Saturday.
From 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., visitors can tour the building filled with historic artifacts and treasures, enjoy a wagon ride as their forefathers did years ago and view a pictorial display highlighting the growth of this unique museum, built around what was left of the old Waggoner-Gates Mill following a disastrous fire in 1967.
The celebration continues at 2 p.m. that Sunday with a special program and reception for invited guests, says John Mark Lambertson, director of the museum for the past 17 years.
Sunday’s invitation-only event is “an in-house kind of celebration for people that have been closely associated with the museum,” he says, including dignitaries, governmental leaders, those closely associated with the museum in the past, former and current volunteers, former and current staff members and members of Friends of the National Frontier Trails Museum.
An illustrated program in the museum theater will review the history of the past 20 years and all the changes that have occurred, says Lambertson, adding there will be “lots of introductions and recognition of people.”
The museum opened as the National Frontier Trails Center in late March of 1990 during a freak snowstorm, which Lambertson says was “chaotic and disruptive.”
Wanting to give Mother Nature more time to warm up the out-of-doors, the anniversary celebration was pushed back two weeks into April, he explains, to prevent what occurred in 1990 from being repeated in 2010.
Renamed the Trails Museum in 2005, The Trails Center was birthed through the grass-root efforts of a “handful of Independence people,” whom Lambertson says were instrumental in obtaining $2.5 million from the state of Missouri to purchase and to rehabilitate the Waggoner-Gates Mill for a trails center.
Through cooperative efforts between the city and the state, the center was leased to Independence for 25 years to finance and operate.
“We have our own separate budget in the general fund,” Lambertson says, noting “no additional state money has come in – not a dime – since (the museum) was opened in 1990.”
However, Lambertson says, the museum has received grant assistance from the National Park Service, the Missouri Humanities Council and other entities, as well as financial assistance from the Friends organization.
As for the state of the museum today, the director says it is “plugging along” despite staff and budget cuts over the years.
“We just find more and more creative ways to stretch and do what we need to do as far as services to the city of Independence, the regional area and certainly to those visitors that come (here) from all over the country and all over the world.”
How important is the museum to Independence?
As one of the “front doors” to “The Queen City of the Trails,” the museum each year usually attracts visitors from all 50 states and from around 37 countries, Lambertson says, noting 359,580 visitors had visited the museum as of the end of February.
Why the attraction?
It is the only museum of its kind.
“We are quite proud of the fact that we believe it’s the largest research library in the nation,” Lambertson says, with approximately 3,500 books and more than 3,700 first-person accounts of those making the arduous trip across the American West.
And it’s “the story, the very, very powerful story of the trails and their impact upon American history,” which Lambertson says is “the true, core gem of this museum.”
Comprised of thousands of stories from thousands of pioneers, the “story of the trails” is really THE gem, he says, noting their compelling stories make it easy for people of all ages, all walks of life and all nationalities to relate to, because “it’s an intensively personal human-interest story.”
Those who haven’t been inside the museum in a long, long time will notice some changes.
“The building is the same, but what we have done inside has changed dramatically,” Lambertson states, recalling the old changing exhibit has been replaced with an introductory exhibit focusing on the various reasons people went west.
Then there is a new section on explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their early exploration expedition, as well as an exhibit pertaining to the early fur trappers and traders, which Lambertson says were “the second wave of explorers in the American West.”
For Lambertson, the 20th anniversary is more than just a two-day celebration to be forgotten perhaps in a month or two.
He believes this is a good opportunity to look back, even though there have been some disappointments. But in the areas of funding and site development, successes have been many.
“Sometimes its takes an anniversary like this to stop and review, think about, look at the pictures and see how far we have come” – especially with the Independence School District.
Lambertson beams discussing the new cooperative program with the district that involves, for the first time , sending 1,100 second graders and some 1,400 fourth graders to the museum to learn the importance historically of Independence and its role with the American West and westward expansion.
“We are really delighted with this new cooperative venture with the Independence School District ... and are probably looking at sort of a banner year for the number of school kids that will come through the doors this year because of this new program.
Happy snniversary and continued success in the years to come, National Frontier Trails Museum. You’re truly a gem in the “Queen City of the Trails.”
