The Arabia Steamboat Museum tells the story of a 19th century steamboat that sank in the Missouri River carrying over 200 tons of cargo destined for 16 different towns along the frontier.
Buried 45 feet beneath a Kansas farm field, the cargo remained in pristine condition due to consistent cold temperature, and a lack of oxygen and sunlight. For a 132 years it waited, and in the winter of 1988 five men and their families set out to uncover its long lost treasure.
After a four and a half month excavation, the collection was removed from the sunken vessel and transported to the newly established Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City's historic River Market.
The museum has been visited by millions of visitors since it opened in 1991. Today, guests come to the museum and marvel at the remarkably well preserved artifacts and the stories they tell.
As a tour guide one of my stories for the guests was how ladies and children were not able to buy left or right shoes or boots during the time of the steamboats, they would buy them in a larger size than needed and soak them so they would shrink to the correct shape and size. There were no right or left shoes. This proved that only did ladies not have any rights in 1856 they didn't have any lefts either!
We visited the Arabia Museum this week (August 2023) it was Amazing! And although we didnt see any pictures of Dave, we saw DAVE! He was on the deck giving extra information and interesting facts about everything! I recognized him from the video. He was very humble and kind. In the next room we met Jerry!
I often think what they would think about our time and if they could imagine things like cell phones, pictures from the surface of Mars and Venus or their diseases being cured by antibiotics
Matt, my husband Aaron and I met you today with our baby, while celebrating our anniversary. Your videos are TRULY amazing (and funny!) and we’ve showed the older children. They cannot wait to go to the museum. Great job! God bless you!
When the show starts you have the beautiful collection of pocket knife. And now I see you with one in the photo shoot. I think you and one of the guys on RU-vid who restore things should get together and do one of those pocket knife. And you can use that video on your channel and the one to restore it will have a cool store to tell on his channel. That big knife, Every house in Mississippi had one when I was young back in the 60's. Very cool knife. I never heard of one not being a problem. They was always sharp. It any, I just found this channel on Monday and today is Thursday 5/18/2023.. I will be here to watch everyone of these video. History is so cool. Its a shame we as a nation trying to forget some of it. Praying for you all.
Hello Matt from Wichita Kansas! This is all very awesome & amazing. As a living historian of the 19th century I truly love & enjoy all of this & I believe that you are doing a wonderful job! Could you please give us some more details on and about the boots & shoes? Were they sewn or pegged? Did they have heel plates & if so why or why not? An is that embossed gold leaf on that one pair? What was the reasoning for the if they were being sent the frontier? I am also very curious about any (suspenders) Braces/Galluses & any parts & hardware that came with them. Thank you for your time! Respectfully Yours: Shawn W Bell
Thank you for talking about the buttons. They are often overlooked bc they are small but they are as beautiful today as they were when they were loaded on the Arabia.
I enjoyed the museum so much I went and saw it a little while after it was opened. And have been back three times since. I must admit that I went In not expecting much.But still wanted to see if. I was not disappointed in the least. One of the best museums I’ve ever visited. No doubt nothing but good luck with your new venture.
@@ArabiaSteamboatMuseum Both. I suspect the layered photography you describe has been a secret of numismatic auction houses for a while now. Tricky bastards.
Thanks so much for the information. I knew about bedkeys -- but only the type that tightens ropes. That firemen used bedkeys to disassemble beds to remove them from houses is new information for me. And big thanks for correcting the common notion that "sleep tight" had something to do with rope beds. It makes me crazy that this misunderstanding is perpetuated.
Great question. The pictures of beds of that time are pretty hard to come by. I couldn’t find a photo of a period bed with the bolts or screws visible. But if they’re anything like beds today, maybe they designed them for the nuts/bolts/screws to be on the interior of the posts/frames so they weren’t visible from the outside.
The bolts were on the end of the bed, they hold the headboard and footboard to the side rails. You would remove the ropes, then remove the four bolts. The bed would come apart in four pieces, easy to carry out of a burning house.
The buttons huh? Alright … keep in mind I had to clean those things as a kid so … I’m kinda over the buttons. :) Just kidding … it’s been long enough. I’m sure we could do something button centric here soon.
@@ArabiaSteamboatMuseum 😆 oh I can imagine button cleaning for kids isn’t super fun, though they do like to sort them, 😂 They are just so amazingly perfect as if one went to the store and just purchased them.
I have a bottle of this perfume! It makes me happy that you're recreating it. I also have a couple of the Frozen Charlotte dolls and a heart-handle bell. I'd love to see more artifacts. China? Earrings?
We toured your wonderful facility two days ago. It was an AMAZING experience, hard to find the words that describe it accurately. If you are truly lucky, you may visit there on a day when Jerry Mackey is there to give you a personal tour as we were!!
I actually know Melody in real life, and she could totally survive with her items. It occurred to me some years ago, that living in the Midwest as I do, 170 years ago, this was the frontier. I pretty much live in a wilderness area anyway, and recommend that anyone going out into the wild (or even on a known trail) take the Ten Essentials with them. At least a couple of people have died recently from being unprepared for the conditions they found themselves in.
Its quite amazing how vibrant in colour the pickles and berries were when they were first found! The seem to have lost a lot of their colour now which is inevitable being exposed to light. Thank goodness for the photographer keeping record of everything. Such a cool story. It would be interesting to see how long that food would last underground. 132 years is a long time!
When I see these artifacts I can't help but think of the investors that were ruined-and whether they had insurance as navigating the Missouri was well known to be hazardous due to it's constantly shifting sandbars, snags, and current. I wouldn't give much credence to the 'youth pastor' comment; just take it like an antebellum person that I'm sure by today's standards had extremely thick skins.
Haha! Thanks for the comment, Tom. Truth be told, I've been called much worse than a youth pastor. :) And to your comment about the investment these folks made, there WERE insurance companies at this time. There were 5 different insurance companies that had claims on either the boat or cargo. When the boat was considered a complete loss and all 5 companies paid out what was owed, the total (insured value) came up to $18,200.
@@ArabiaSteamboatMuseum $18,200 is $638,096.28 today as the dollar has declined in value 97% since 1856! Thanks for the information about the insurance claims. I think of Lloyd's of London whose original purpose was insuring ships and cargo. Amazing just how international the Arabia's cargo was.
Never underestimate Yankee ingenuity. The roll up tape measure was another item I found interesting-exactly like modern roll up measures. I remember one of my history teachers from high school emphasizing to us that "Necessity is the mother of all invention." We like to categorize the people of this era as simpletons-but they had knowledge passed down that we take for granted today like how to hand dig a well for example. My grandparents were proficient at gardening, butchering, smoking meat, making hams, canning and preserving-and each generation lost parts of that knowledge with advances in technology. Are we really any smarter than them when we consider what fills our minds today? I'd wager on 1850's people to survive much more readily simply because their knowledge was practical and useful. Sorry...philosophical rant over with and I'll step down from my soap box.
My wife and I visited the museum for the first time. We ended up chatting with Dave for over 20 minutes on the boilers and steam system. (I do boiler maintenance where I work; fascinating to learn how the basics are still the same.) What I appreciate about the museum is that they allow visitors to actually touch the cast iron pieces of the boiler and drive system. We tend to associate this time period with old black and white pictures but the clothing recovered shows people liked dressing in colors just as much as we do today.
My husband and I really enjoyed visiting the Arabia Museum last month. Just so much information and artifacts that I never imagined would exist and very well done. The tour was made even more special and memorable when we met you, Matt and you were so kind, informative and we love our picture with you.
