The museum located in Topeka is receiving visitors again following a three-year closure for renovations. In that time, staffers at the state historical society overcame the unexpected death of their leader while also fulfilling her vision for a new way to share the stories of Kansas.
by AJ Dome
Sarah Bell doesn’t recommend taking on two new babies at the same time.
Bell was hired to lead the Kansas Museum of History in June 2022 when she was eight months pregnant with her son, Felix.
After Felix was born and she started her job in September of that year, she quickly realized how hard it would be to balance post-baby emotions with a lack of sleep, a commute from her home in Lawrence to the museum in Topeka, and the pressures of a new job.
On top of that, her new colleagues were still coping with the death of historical society Executive Director Jennie Chinn, who led the state agency from 2004 until April 2022, when she died from injuries following an accident.
Chinn had been a visionary for the renovations to the 20,000 square-foot exhibit space, a project under active discussion since 2008. Now, the agency was in a proverbial lurch without Chinn and many longer-serving staff who had retired.
“I walked into a project that had been many years in the making, but essentially all of the people who had their hands in it were not there anymore,” she says. “When Jennie died, there was a huge gap in knowledge on the project.”
Through the leadership of Bell and others, the museum underwent a three-year closure beginning in late 2022 to completely renovate the space using in-house elbow grease while honoring Chinn’s legacy.
‘A TAH-DAH MOMENT’
According to current historical society executive director Patrick Zollner, it was Chinn’s wish for all the departments housed in the agency building – from archaeology to education, archives and maintenance – to work together to bring the museum forward into the next generation.
Before the three-year renovation began, the museum looked and felt dated. Visitors had walked through the same layout for about 40 years, with most of the museum’s 122,000 artifacts going unseen. Only about 3,000 artifacts were able to be displayed at one time – a number that hasn’t changed. Personnel at the historical society also rarely interacted at the time, choosing largely to stick with their separate departments.
Zollner says some larger artifacts, including an example of the Longren Flyer airplane that was built in Topeka during the early 1900s, were being overlooked because they were placed in awkward spots for people to get a good view, like being hoisted to the ceiling. It’s still hanging in the air, but now the Longren plane has a ramp for people to get a closer look at the complicated controls.
“It really brings home the challenges of early flight and what those pioneers of flight had to endure,” he says.
Changing to a thematic structure also allows artifacts to be switched out more often to refresh the space, and there is a schedule being developed for the museum to create and host traveling exhibits relevant to Kansas history.
Zollner was hired by Chinn in 2004. He says she loved the Disney theme parks, and she wanted to bring some of that whimsy to Topeka.
“What Jennie brought to the table was: she didn’t want to look at a traditional museum,” Zollner says. “She wanted a wow factor, a tah-dah moment.”
Zollner says it was 2008 when Chinn realized the museum needed an aesthetic update, so she led a marketing study and held stakeholder meetings for the next several years to determine how to proceed.
The project got its first financial boost at the historical society’s final meeting of 2015, when the agency received $1 million for renovations from the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, a nonprofit based in northwest Kansas that provides funding for philanthropic causes across the state. The final cost of the work would be about $7 million.
Chinn then established a connection, and a contract, with Dimensional Innovations, a design firm based in Overland Park that was tasked with crafting the new exhibit galleries. Beau Easley is the firm’s creative director, and he says he met with Chinn on his second working day at the firm to discuss her concept.
Years later, he’s proud of the finished work.
“I’ve had other projects, but this one is the one I’ve most looked forward to completing,” Easley says. “It’s hard not to get emotional because it’s been nearly a decade in the making.”
Over the decade-long project, Bell came to trust Easley. “I think we got really lucky, in that we didn’t feel like we were just clients, but that we really felt like partners who figured out problems together,” she says.
WRANGLING BIG THEMES
Zollner credits Chinn with the idea of transforming the museum into one that follows themes instead of a chronological layout.
As an example, the Cosmosphere science museum in Hutchinson utilizes a mix of themed spaces that feature chronological timelines for visitors to better understand the trajectory and growth of space exploration.
Zollner sees a couple of big advantages to a themed layout. It provides staff with an easier way to update exhibits as information changes, and it offers a more interactive experience for visitors.
“On a chronological timeline, you’re locked into a path, and you have to physically add more space (in order to expand),” he says. “A themed timeline enables you to look at things in different ways.”
Zollner says the museum project was the first of its kind for Dimensional Innovations when it accepted the contract 10 years ago. To refine and organize the project, Easley met with historical society staff once a week for years.
Easley says maintaining consistent communication was paramount in not only completing the project on time, but also fulfilling the broader goal of sharing multilayered Kansas stories.
“With that consistency, we worked to build trust (with the historical society team), and we got to know them very, very well,” he says. “We’ve gotten to a point where we can be very candid with one another. We’ve become family in a way.”
For Bell, it meant completing a project she didn’t start, and doing so in a manner that respected Chinn’s original vision while utilizing in-house resources to stay within the original budget.
The first challenge she faced was structuring the thematic gallery in a way that didn’t confuse visitors, or herself.
“It was really important to me that we nailed that structure,” she says, “because when you’re doing a thematic gallery, you’re taking away the foundation of how we tell history, which is chronological. We have to replace it with a foundation that still makes sense to people.”
Bell set up listening sessions for the different divisions across the agency to welcome more thoughts and ideas about the project. From those meetings, she had a breakthrough that inspired her to pick up her pen.
“I started writing, ‘What is Kansas?’,” she says. “It’s all these stereotypes we think of, but it’s also so much more.”
As she scribbled, she decided museum visitors needed to begin their tour with an exhibit highlighting stereotypes of Kansas. She saw those cliches as part of the bigger story of the state, and wanted visitors to explore how the state and its people have evolved
That brainstorm led her to create the foundation she was seeking, one that honors what Chinn had envisioned.
“It took a lot of thought and discussions and tweaking and adjustments to get to this structure,” she says, “and it’s one that we’re all really happy with.”
AN INSIDE JOB
Once the thematic structure was established, the work of designing and building the new museum interior began. Crews made up of historical society employees refurbished the museum, one wall at a time.
Bell leaned on her colleagues heavily during the reconstruction process, hosting listening sessions and bridging divisions that enabled coworkers to take charge of the project in their own ways.
“To me, that’s really the magic of what we’ve pulled off,” she says. “We’ve done this renovation on such a limited budget, and we’ve been able to do that through our talented staff.”
Easley worked with Bell to plan the new museum format and all the written content for the exhibits. A graphic design system was created for each gallery to make information easier for people to read as they walk by, and to connect the separate galleries while underpinning the main theme.
“History isn’t something that happened 50 years ago. It’s happening now, and we’re all making our mark on it.”
Sarah Bell, director for the Kansas Museum of History
Things such as video screens, color palettes, carpet selection, font styles and lighting levels all add to the mood and the visitor experience. Contributions from notable Kansans also provide an extra touch of flavor to each gallery.
An introductory video narrated by acclaimed Kansas filmmaker Kevin Willmott is featured along with some of his personal artifacts. Award-winning National Geographic photographer and Lindsborg resident Jim Richardson donated some of his images and cameras to an exhibit. Country artist Martina McBride, a native of the rural community of Sharon in south-central Kansas, also contributed a video.
Native American history is incorporated throughout the galleries on a broader and more detailed level. Jancita Warrington, the executive director of the Kansas Native American Affairs office, says she’s proud of the intentionality put forth by museum staff to include the original 36 Indigenous tribes of the area before Kansas became a state, as well as the four federally-recognized tribes that are in the state.
Warrington participated in many of the planning meetings. She says this new exhibit space will help remind visitors that Native Americans aren’t just part of the past.
“They have always been here,” she says, “they have always contributed to the fabric of Kansas, and they have continued to evolve as the state has evolved over time. That is now reflected in this exhibit in a way that wasn’t prior.”
Involving every department also gave the entire historical society staff a stake in the project. Zollner says that approach helped broaden awareness of one anothers’ work. Over the past three years, Bell has noticed a difference in her own leadership capabilities as well as those of her coworkers.
“What’s nice in a project like this is there’s too much work for one person, so I think it’s actually helped me become a better delegator of tasks,” she says. “The great result of that is you get people buying into the project in awesome ways.”
RE-OPENING DAY
Bell has had teachers from across Kansas contacting her all year asking when school visits can resume. She plans to start receiving field trips again in February. She’s also preparing for Kansas Day events on Jan. 29, which has historically brought large groups of students and visitors to the museum.
“I know COVID certainly made it a lot harder and changed the dynamics of field trips,” she says, “but this place in particular is one that’s a favorite for a lot of educators across the state.”
The next big challenge for Bell, Zollner and the staff is bringing people back to the museum. Zollner’s target goal is for at least 80,000 visitors by next autumn. Zollner and Bell will lead marketing strategies in partnership with Visit Topeka and Kansas Tourism to promote the museum with a simple phrase: We are open.
“We want to get that buzz and excitement back,” Zollner says. “Based on reactions to social media posts, or people who have contacted us because of their interest, there is pent-up demand (for the museum to re-open).”
For Easley, thinking about people walking through the refreshed exhibits that he oversaw the design of makes him emotional.
“To see older generations pull each other on the arm around the corner to see more, that to me is extremely gratifying,” he says.
Bell’s son, Felix, now three years old, was excited to see the changes “mommy’s museum” underwent. He’s gotten sneak peeks of the construction as he’s grown.
“There’s this really awesome thing about him growing up alongside the brand-new museum,” Bell says. “He’s the generation we’re making this for.”
As a parent, she wants to remind Felix, and other children who come through the museum doors, that there are lessons in history that remain relevant.
“History isn’t something that happened 50 years ago. It’s happening now, and we’re all making our mark on it.”
A native of southwest Kansas, AJ Dome has a background in radio news, TV production and newspaper reporting. He has reported as a correspondent for The Journal since 2023 and is based in Garden City.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described how former historical society Executive Director Jennie Chinn died. The article has been updated to reflect that she died in an accident at her home.
This article was republished here with the permission of: KLC Journal