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NC Kansas
LaCrosse Explorations
Learn more about LaCrosse by following the links below:

Museum Complex

Address: 120 1st St
LaCrosse, KS 67548
Telephone Number: 785.222.9900



About this Exploration:

The Museum Complex includes four separate museums: the Barbed Wire, Rush County Historical, Post Rock, and Nekoma Bank Museums.  As a whole, these four museums focus on pioneer life in Rush County during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


Painters and photographers love the picturesque fences made of limestone posts and barbed wire that characterize parts of central Kansas, but there is more to the story.  On the treeless prairie, the local fossil-filled limestone was also the building material of everything from stables to cathedrals and unlike most wood buildings these structures have survived.  And barbed wire transformed the west from range land to wheat farms.  The Barbed Wire and the Post Rock Museums tell the tales. 
 
A collection of late 19th century and early 20th century artifacts from the pioneer days is housed in a Santa Fe Railroad depot to tell the story of Rush County. The textile collection is the star; it includes everything from long white christening dresses to a coat made from a buffalo hide. There is also an outstanding military collection: shells, uniforms, and bayonets from the two world wars.
 
The Nekoma Bank Museum was the original Nekoma Bank (1916-1987) in Nekoma. It was moved to LaCrosse and restored to its orginal condition. It features some of the original furnishings of the bank that was used for over 70 years. The furnishings also include a pre-Civil War desk from the court house, oak chairs and equipment from the old Farmers and Merchants Bank, posting and adding machines from the pre-World War I period, and checkbooks, journals, and ledgers from the early years of the operation of the Nekoma Bank. A museum of rural banking is housed in the back.

Open May-September Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.- 4:30 p.m.; Sunday 1- 4:30 p.m.
 
Ball of Barbed Wire 
Ball of Barbed Wire                     Rush County Historical Museum

 
Barbed Wire Museum                      Nekoma Bank Museum
 
Rush County Bank Pictures

 
Interior of Restored Bank

Post Rock Museum

contact info
Judith Reynolds
220 W. 8th Street
LaCrosse, KS 67548
Phone: 785.222.2781
 
 
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Kansas Sampler Foundation   Kansas Department of Commerce - Travel Kansas   Get Rural Kansas