World War I Museum

6/21/11

The World War I Museum was conceived in 1918 and built around 1924.  It contains an enormous amount of armaments and three-dimensional life-size displays.

The building is an enormous stone structure.  An elevator carries visitors to a landing near the tower top and there's a short walk to the observation platform.

 

The observation tower is under the round top.

This panoramic view of Kansas City is composed of 5 photos that were taken from the observation platform.

 The entrance to the exhibits is a glass bridge over a field of poppies representing lives lost in the war.

 Full-scale trenches offer a view of the infamous fighting conditions at the front.  While this seems clean and tolerable, rain and mud turned these into water-soaked horror pits.

This early poster shows the Liberty Memorial spotlighted at night with the eternal flame burning.

We were told that the flame was extinguished to conserve funds.







The buildings on either side house additional exhibits.







An interesting site maintained by the museum is at: 

http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index_community.aspx