Arabia? In Missouri?? (MO)

Lunch at Clinton’s, a soda fountain Truman worked at as a youth, then on to the Arabia Steamboat Museum ($11.50 senior), in Kansas City, MO. The Arabia was a Missouri River sidewheeler that hit a snag and went down in 1856 – one of hundreds that sank carrying stores for other river communities and the frontier west. In 1986 five amateur treasure hunters located the Arabia 45’under a cornfield, and at their own expense raised over 200 tons of very well preserved goods and ship fragments (boilers, stern and rudder, paddle wheel axle, etc.). They changed their minds about selling the recovered items and instead built this private museum to display what they had found, demonstrate their conservation efforts, and encourage others to “follow their dreams”. Well worth the visit.

They are still conserving items from the Arabia, and are now working on recovering the Mars. Yes, Arabia and Mars are both, surprisingly, part of Missouri.