Guest written by Anne Jones, curator of collections The Johnson County Museum’s special exhibit, Inside the Box: A 1951 Time Capsule, contains well over 100 items representing aspects of the county in 1951 – newspapers, letters, government documents, maps, directories, and photographs. One photograph from the time capsule is actually much older, dating to 1891, and shows another time capsule moment from the county’s history. It is just one of the more than 1.5 million items in the museum’s permanent collections. Adding the 1891 photograph to the collections provided an opportunity to have the ..read more

Elizabeth Freise moved to Johnson County in the mid-1970s when she was only four years old. One of the first places her mother took her was the Antioch Library. They regularly checked out books and attended library storytimes where her mom got to know her new neighbors, and Elizabeth became familiar with the other kids in attendance. She told me that she even met her lifelong best friend at an Antioch storytime. Today her mother looks back on the Antioch branch as the first real sense of community that she had in the area. Antioch branch of Johnson County Library. Johnson County Library collec ..read more

Guest written by Jessica Sapien, Emerging Museum Professional Intern, Johnson County Museum In honor of Women’s History Month, the Johnson County Museum celebrates the women who work to make social, cultural, and political change in Johnson County. This blog is based on an exhibit case that Emerging Museum Professional Intern Jessica Sapien curated last year. The museum acknowledges that not all women of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds have been equally represented in our exhibitions. With the help of the Johnson County community, we are working to change how we record and rememb ..read more

The Johnson County Museum’s newest special exhibit, Inside the Box: A 1951 Time Capsule, will open on Saturday, February 3. In May 1951, county officials and a crowd of residents gathered in the courthouse square in Olathe. County leaders, with the help of Masons, were laying the cornerstone for the new, 1952 Johnson County Courthouse. Inside the cornerstone, officials placed a small, hand-made copper box – a time capsule left for future generations to discover. After seventy years safely tucked away, the still-sealed box was retrieved when that courthouse was being demolished in 2020. The Joh ..read more

Snuggle in, friends. We want to tell you a story. Yertle the Turtle Once upon a time, around 2013, which is recent history, but longer ago than some librarians care to admit, someone put a turtle in the restroom trash can at the Cedar Roe Library. A nice Librarian named Lynn put on a latex glove and fished, so to speak, the turtle out of the rubbish. Another nice Librarian named Megan found a box where the turtle would be safe, and another nice Librarian named Meredith fed the turtle lettuce and carrots. Yet another nice Librarian named Emily put water in the turtle’s box while another nice Li ..read more

The green screen photo booth interactive is a great way to put yourself “in” Johnson County history! You can find it at the end of our signature exhibit, Becoming Johnson County. As we bid farewell to 2023, the Johnson County Museum is proud to reflect on a year filled with achievements, community engagement, and memorable moments. Throughout the year, we remained dedicated to our mission of fostering a deep understanding of history and community-building as we welcomed over 50,000 visitors to the Museum and Lanesfield Historic Site. Our visitors’ enthusiasm and engagement fuel our commitment ..read more

The Johnson County Museum has digitized thousands of images from its collections that are available for viewing on JoCoHistory.org. Our curator of interpretation loves JoCoHistory.org so much that there is a small sign hanging outside of his cubical that reads “Have you checked JoCoHistory?” This collaborative resource dedicated to regional history is so incredible that we wanted to take a moment to share it with those of you have not yet explored the site. JoCoHistory.org hosts the digitized collections of the Johnson County Museum and Johnson County Library, as well as partners such as the C ..read more

This article was written in honor of the founders of Johnson County Library for the 50th anniversary of the library’s opening. It has been edited for length and clarity. The “founding” of Johnson County Library started with the Prairie School Library Committee in 1951 and lasted at least five years – through the referendum campaign in 1952, followed by the problem of funding the newly-authorized library, to the transition from volunteer libraries to staffing by paid library employees, which concluded in 1956. At that point, the Library Committee was evolved into the Friends of the Library. Man ..read more

For anyone who hasn’t had the chance to visit the Johnson County Museum’s special exhibit, TRAINS: Transportation and the Transformation of Johnson County, you might be thinking: how much change did railroads really bring to a county that today has a modern, suburban, automobile-centered landscape? The TRAINS exhibit makes it clear that railroads transformed elements of Johnson County’s landscape, economy, society, and population. Access to the railroads held the fate of whole towns – including town names. Here are five examples of Johnson County, Kansas towns (past and present) named as a dir ..read more

Ernest Hemingway, known for such literary classics as The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms, stood out as one of the 20th century’s most prolific authors. He famously spent much of his life traveling, living in places like Paris, Cuba, and the Florida Keys. His time spent in Kansas City, first as a young cub reporter for The Kansas City Star and later in a brief but significant stays in the Johnson County area that remains less widely known.  Ernest Hemingway in Kenya, 1953. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons Born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway’s w ..read more