Old Cowtown Museum is a living history museum located in Wichita, Kansas along the Arkansas River. It focuses on life in Wichita during the last part of the 19th century.
The museum sits on 23 acres and consists of 60+ historic and recreated buildings, including a period farm and out-buildings. The museum artifact collection includes 12,000+ items dating from the period and ranginf from farm wagons to tea spoons. The museum also contains a number of live animals, such as Percheron horses, a Longhorn steer and chickens. The Old Cowtown experience includes costumed interpreters, hands-on activities and a calendar of diverse events throughout the year.
Cowtown is a museum where you’ll experience life in the 1870s. Immerse yourself in a sampling of the sights, sounds and activities common to a Midwestern cattle town.
You’ll experience the dramatic clash of Victorian ideals and economic realities as these competing forces strove to create an economically viable cattle town and a Victorian metropolis.
Try a wagon ride, hear the ring of the blacksmith anvil, and visit the humble home of the town’s founder, Darius Munger. Be sure to stop at the home of the Marshall Murdock, who single-handedly promoted the town through his newspaper. After you smell what the farmer’s wife is cooking for her family, try an ice cold sarsaparilla in the saloon…but be prepared to duck in the doorway as gunfire erupts in the streets!
