Steamboat Arabia, Kansas City, Missouri

On September 5th, 1856 , a steamboat named “Arabia” struck a large walnut tree hidden just under the surface of the Missouri River. The steamboat sank. In 1987, David Hawley found the wreck site lying more than one-half mile from the river’s edge and buried 45 feet underground. And in 1988, Greg, along with David, their dad Bob, and two family friends , excavated the steamboat Arabia and brought it back to the surface. Arabia held 222 tons of freight, and the ship itself weighed over 222 tons. When full, it weighed about 444 tons.

Arabia had sunk on the Missouri River, just north of Kansas City, and as the corps of engineers and Mother Nature switched the river's direction, it ended up being buried in a farmer's field, rather than in the river. To raise the ship, they had to dig a huge hole and then continually pump water out as they removed things because the water was always coming back in. The low oxygen, no sunlight atmosphere did a fantastic job of preserving everything on the ship. The first thing the excavators found was in the upper spokes of the freshly exposed paddle wheel....it was an 1849 rubber shoe made by Goodyear.

The museum itself is simply amazing. So many artifacts! It's like walking back through time and into the mid-1800s. The care and effort put forth for preservation is extremely inspiring. The museum is in continuous growth as they finish the long process of preservation and add new artifacts and displays. They still have a "boatload", no pun intended, of artifacts to prepare for display. The stories about how they preserved the various artifacts are very enjoyable. You get to see part of the lab and even smell some of the perfume they found.

....huge display of the china ware recovered.

There are dresses, shirts, shoes and an array of clothing that look like you could wear them tomorrow. There are displays of eye glasses; ink wells; food bottles; medicines; spoons; bells; china; wrenches; guns; pocket knives; trading beads; jewelry; nails; and on and on......all perfectly preserved.

Display of buttons, perfume, jewelry, bottles, coins nestled amongst old beads....

Perfumes and writing pens from France.....

...cases and cases of well-preserved items were found and a sampling of all is displayed

....beautiful artifacts and well displayed....

Porcelain buttons on the left and trading beads on the right....

The Arabia is one of Kansas City's "treasures" and we were highly impressed with this museum. This is a story about every day guys that had a dream of digging up a sunken boat and then they had the forethought to document every step of their recovery so that now we can see their story and their findings. Their video presentations, their personal storytelling and the huge amount of well-preserved artifacts shows how determined they were in the rescue of the Arabia and then sharing it with the public. Reading about history is nothing like seeing it.