Source: Amy Hemphill (while visiting her relatives in Pratt)

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One of the things Pratt has developed over the last few years is a fairly amazing historical museum. Now, when my dad told me we needed to go see this, I was skeptical. I mean, how good could a museum located in a town with 6500 people in the middle of a fairly culturally dry area be? The answer is - pretty amazing. They have done a wonderful job with this museum of presenting a history of the area. Instead of just displays with stuff, they've set up mock main street type areas, with little stores and displays showing what rooms in a house looked like at the turn of the century, or what a dentist's office or drug store looked like when the town was founded. The neatest thing about it was that, since my family has been around since about the time the town was founded, I kept finding things all over the museum that had belonged to my family. The best items were:

In the section of the museum where they listed the town citizens who'd fought in various wars, they had displays of military uniforms over the years. One of them was a Korean War era fighter pilot flight suit, complete with oxygen helmet. It was displayed on a mannequin in a museum case. The best part? The name stitched onto the chest was my dad's. (Funny moment: My stepmother looked at the uniform and said, "Wow, were you that skinny once?")

In one room, they had a music display, with different kinds of musical instruments, and a display of different TV's and stereos and record players. One of the musical instruments was an accordian my grandfather used to play.

In the Main Street display, they had an old fashioned post office, with the old style mail boxes. These mailboxes came from the Byers post office, where my aunt was the postmaster for 20 years, and her name was on the display.

One of the things Kansas is the most proud of was their role in the development of the B-29 bomber - the plane that was used in WWII to end the war with Japan, both through general bombing exercises, and the dropping of the two atomic bombs. One of the air fields used to develop the planes and train the pilots was the Pratt air field. My great-grandmother was one of the women who worked in the manufacturing side of things. She was a parts supervisor. Seeing her as part of that made me pretty proud.

One of the old John Deere tractors on display was a 1920's model that was used by my grandfather and my uncle Herman on their farms. It was donated to the museum by my cousin Dean.

There were many other things throughout the museum either donated by my family, or listing my family as being part of the town's history. It was really neat to see all of that. I definitely would like to go back and visit that museum again some day. This time, I'll remember to take my camera.

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