See what a progressive farming community, spread across some 30 sloping acres, looked like in the mid-1800s. Missouri Town 1855 is composed of more than 25 buildings dating from 1820 to 1860. This living history museum uses original structures, furnishings and equipment. Also depicting the 19th Century lifestyles are interpreters in period attire, authentic field and garden crops, and rare livestock breeds. Visit with professional living history interpreters on this self-guided tour.
Missouri Town 1855 was never a real village in which real people lived and worked. Instead, it is a reconstruction of what a person may have found at a Missouri crossroads during the mid-19th Century. The buildings in the village were moved to Missouri Town 1855 from other locations in seven different western Missouri counties. These are actual buildings from the mid-19th Century.
The year 1855 was chosen to interpret because it was the last year before the Kansas-Missouri border fighting began to disrupt the area. By 1856, shootings, lynchings and other violence had polarized pro-slavery and anti-slavery adherents into open conflict.
