Old Cowtown is a living history museum with fifty-four historic and refashioned buildings that work to recreate a Central Plains cattle town in the late 19th century. Cowtown’s unique programming chronicles Wichita's transformation from a frontier settlement to a cattle town, as well as its subsequent transformation to an agricultural center and manufacturing city. Costumed staff portray buffalo hunters, traders, cowboys, Blacksmiths, carpenters, and farmers. Guests can tour authentic and recreated stores, depots, banks, grain elevators, barns, saloons, newspaper shops, and much more. Children will especially enjoy the DeVore Farm, which features a working farm with machinery from the 1880s.
Since the founding of the museum in 1935, the permanent collection of the Wichita Art Museum has grown to more than 8,000 objects. The collection is international, with an emphasis on American artists of the 19th and 20th century. It is particularly strong in works that reflect the cultural heritage of the Great Plains.
Established n 1969, the Mid-America All-Indian Center works to preserve and share the culture and history of Native Americans, as well as the role they play in society today. The museum features a collection of 3,000 artifacts; these are rotated in new exhibits throughout the year. The museum also features activities and attractions outside, including a tipi, travois (a drag sled for horses and dogs), a wildlife learning center, and a medicinal garden. Events held at the museum include powwows and community nights. Educational programs are also offered including arts and craft classes and field trips.
Created as part of a $20-million riverfront restoration project and dedicated in 1974, The Keeper of the Plains has become the symbol of the city of Wichita. The 45-foot steel sculpture by Kiowa-Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin stands at the junction of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers. The sculpture stands on a 30-foot tall platform adjacent to the Mid-America All-Indian Center. The sculpture depicts a man who stands “…with hands raised in supplication to the Great Spirit.” The statue acts as a visual reminder of the local tribes that inhabit the area (past and present) and the significant roles Indigenous people played in American history.
Exploration Place opened in 2000 and is located in a beautiful modern building on the Arkansas River. The museum features a theater and planetarium, as well as a dozen major permanent exhibits and rotating interactive exhibits that keep the museum a dynamic learning environment. Permanent exhibits include AgMagination, an interactive set of displays and simulations that teach about the history and future of Kansas agriculture. There is also a seven-foot-tall model of the human mouth, appropriately labeled "Big Mouth," that tests good oral health knowledge. There is also an exhibit called Bridging Art and Science which features local artists whose work incorporates some aspects of scientific thought. Among the most popular displays, Exploring Flight and Design, includes flight simulators and a giant "wind wall" made of thousands of tiny reflective discs that show air currents generated by a real airplane propeller and two wind generators mounted on a tower. Also popular is "Kansas in Miniature" - a small-scale recreation of early-1950s Kansas buildings, landmarks and more. There are also numerous temporary and traveling exhibits.
What some people might call "The hidden gem," is called Veterans Memorial Park. This unique park is located Downtown Wichita Kansas along the Arkansas River on about 4.5 acres. From the Bicentennial Flag Pavilion to the 17 memorials representing six wars and every branch of the military, visitors can honor veterans and military to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. The park is open to the public and offers free admission. You can complete the “Veteran’s Memorial Walk” along the east side of the Arkansas River right to the park and witness for yourself this appealing and unique collection of statues, sculptures and memorials. The tour takes about 1-2 hours to complete.
The Dorado SS (248) memorial is located within Wichita's Veterans Memorial Park honors the submariners of Dorado SS (248) who were lost during World War II. The monument was dedicated by the US Submarine Veterans of World War II, Kansas Chapter in October 1996. The front of the monument includes a complete crew list and the words “In Honor of One of 52 Submarines on Eternal Patrol” appear at the base of the monument. Although submarines only represented 2% of the US Naval Forces, they destroyed 50% of Japanese shipping and more than 30% of their warships.
This sunbonneted pioneer mother carrying a Bible and satchel and leading her young son by the hand echoes Bryant Baker's famous "Pioneer Woman" for Ponca City, Oklahoma. It was sculpted by Dorothy L. Koelling in 1989, and dedicated on the Wichita riverfront in 1994. According to the dedication plaque, it "symbolizes the hardhip and dreams of early Wichita pioneers." It was given in memory of Eva M. and Will G. Price to recognize "their devotion and inspiration to the cultural and business life of Wichita." The statue stands in front of the civic center, near statues of a Native American man holding a peace pipe, Lebanese immigrant Farris George Jabara, and a group of children at play representing America's future.
This riverfront site has been the center of performances and conventions in Wichita for more than a century starting with The Forum, which became the largest theater in the city when it was constructed in 1910. As part of the 1970 centennial celebration of Wichita, the former site of the Forum became home to Century II starting in 1969. The venue is a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired structure that has hosted numerus cultural events, conventions, sporting events, and community meetings in its theater, expo hall, and meeting spaces.
Designed in the 1960s in the Brutalist style of architecture which was popular and considered modern at the time, this building was the home of the downtown Wichita library for fifty years. Built to be plain yet functional, much of this four-story structure is made of glass, letting in natural light and making the space inside feel inviting and open. In the 21st century, the public library system moved the central branch to the nearby Advanced Learning branch in order to expand to a larger building. The former Central branch has been vacant since 2018 other than serving as a temporary COVID-19 vaccine clinic in 2021.
This local history museum is located in the old City Hall which was built in 1892. The building is one of the state's oldest and most impressive courthouses. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style by Willis Proudfoot and George Bird, it features an ornate stone decorative exterior and was given the nickname, the “Palace of the Plains”. As such, the building is significant for its architecture and the fact that it represents the city's development during the late 19th century. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The museum offers four stories of exhibits that showcase life in Wichita over the centuries, from Native American culture, to early settlers and railroads, to the birth of the aviation industry, and to more recent history. A wide variety of exhibits explore this history, such as the recreated early car garage featuring a 1916 Jones automobile, a typical 19th-cottage, and an early 20th century drug store. The museum also houses an internationally-acclaimed collection of silver-plated service ware.
One of fifty-eight libraries across Kansas funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the Wichita Carnegie Library opened its doors in 1915 and served as the city's main library until 1967. The outside of the building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Anthony Allaire Crowell and the inside featured classical elements. To the growing city of Wichita, the library was a source of cultural pride, soon becoming a staple of education and literacy for its citizens. After the Central library replaced this structure as Wichita's downtown branch in the late 1960s, the historic building building housed government offices followed by a planetarium. The building is currently home to Fidelity Bank.
This styled nude statue was intended to honor early white Kansas settler women when it was placed in Wichita amid the nation’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. Wichitans accepted the statue at that time, but some appear to have become concerned with her nudity. Since 2005 the statue has been seriously vandalized three times.
Woolf Brothers was a Kansas City-based clothing company founded in 1865. In 1922, after taking over the company, the founder's son Herbert Woolf expanded its reach to cities across the south and midwest including Tulsa, Memphis, and Wichita. The location here on Douglas Avenue quickly became a core of the downtown shopping district which encouraged other out-of-state companies to expand their business to the Wichita market. However, as shopping trends over towards malls and away from the downtown in the 1980s, this store closed in 1985 after sixty years of serving the downtown area. The building was repurposed into office space.
This bronze sculpture, created by artist Georgia Gerber, memorializes the months-long sit-in of African American college students in the former Dockum's Drugstore, which took place in July-August 1954. Ultimately, the sit-in was successful; the owner allowed the participants to eat at the counter and soon the city began to desegregate.
Chester I. Lewis Reflection Square Park opened in September of 2023 and commemorates the life and legacy of Chester I. Lewis, one of Wichita's most important civil rights leaders during the twentieth century. The park contains several large art installments depicting scenes from the local civil rights movement, including the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, Freedom Rides, and sit-ins. Chester I. Lewis was a lawyer and activist in Wichita who worked tirelessly throughout the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to break down the deep segregation and inequality in his city. Lewis’ value to the progress made towards equality cannot be overstated: he fought injustice everywhere he saw it, including the Boeing Aircraft Company, local public schools, the fire department, housing, local hospitals, and more. He strongly advocated involvement for young people in public life and was known as a man of principle who valued the movement and its goals to support positive change in Wichita.
Seeking racial equity and an end to segregation, Wichita's Black students organized and staged a sit-in on July 19, 1958, at Wichita's Dockum Drugstore, a location now home to the Ambassador Hotel. Long denied entry into the city's movie theaters and restaurants, students exercised their right to peacefully protest over a three-week period at the popular lunch counter. It was one of the first organized sit-ins in the country. A group of young people led by Ron Walters, the president of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council at the time, decided to start the protest. The sit-in was successful after the owner finally relented because the protest was hurting business. Other businesses in Wichita soon followed suit, leading to desegregation throughout the city. Protests like the Dockum Drugstore Sit-In transformed the struggle for racial equity in America and inspired similar protests in Oklahoma City and Greensboro, North Carolina, which took place soon after. A monument honoring the sit-in was erected at this location and later placed in storage with plans to install it one block east within a dedicated urban park.
The Orpheum opened in 1922 and is historically significant as one of the first "atmospheric" theaters built in the country (in atmospheric theaters the auditorium ceiling is curved and decorated in such a way that it gives the illusion of an open evening sky). The interior was designed to mirror a Spanish courtyard. The theater's history followed the decline of urban downtowns as places of entertainment, losing business to suburban theaters that had less overhead and maintenance costs. Volunteers saved the theater from the wrecking ball in 1983 and began the process of restoring the historic theater. Today, the theater once again hosts some of the leading national acts and is one of the premiere attractions in central Kansas. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Wichita's first high-rise and once its largest hotel, the Lassen Hotel was financed by El Reno businessman Henry Lassen. It is also notable for its interesting use of a classically-inspired combination of Renaissance Revival and Late 19th and Early 20th Century Revivals, which are all characteristic styles of the post-World War I boom. After being completed in 1919 the hotel accommodated many famous figures as they passed through the city, including Amelia Earhart, Will Rogers, Rudolph Valentino, and many others. After changing hands several times over the decades, the hotel became the Radisson Hotel from 1968 to 1971, a retirement home until 1981, and office space until 2015. The offices were vacated in 2015 so the building could be repurposed into apartments, but this never happened and the former hotel stands empty today.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This tour starts at several landmark downtown buildings and monuments before winding its way towards museums and historic city buildings as it moves to the riverfront area. Along the way, the tour stops at civil rights landmarks as it winds its way towards the Keeper of the Plains and the Mid-America All Indian Center.
