Quirky Kansas City Day Trips

Matfield Station in Matfield Green, Kan. is a small retreat that looks out over the BNSF train tracks. Photo credit: Matt Kleinmann, Matt Kleinmann Photography

Things to do in Kansas and Missouri

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From the hair museum to the bridge to nowhere, there are plenty of interesting and even bizarre things to see and do in Missouri and Kansas.

On a recent segment of KCUR’s Central Standard, local experts Toni Alexander, communications manager of Visitkc.com; and Julie McPike, program coordinator of Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area; discussed the area’s best quirky day trips. Their suggestions included:

  1. Big Brutus – West Mineral, Kan.
  2. Leila’s Hair Museum – Independence, Mo.
  3. The (haunted) Sallie House – Atchinson, Kan.
  4. Garden of Eden – Lucas, Kan.
  5. Glore Psychiatric Museum, one of the “1000 places to see before you die” – St. Joseph, Mo.
  6. Mushroom Rock State Park – Marquette, Mo.
  7. The Barbed Wire Museum – La Crosse, Kan.
  8. Fort Smith, remnants of a Civil War-era fort – St. Joseph, Mo.
  9. Canton ferry boat ride to nowhere – Canton, Mo.
  10. World’s Largest Ball of Twine – Cawker City, Kan.
  11. Walt Disney’s Hometown Museum – Marceline, Mo.
  12. Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Studio – Kansas City, Mo.
  13. Dalton Gang Hideout and escape tunnel – Meade, Kan.
  14. World’s largest hand dug well– Greensburg, Kan.
  15. Locust Creek Covered Bridge – Laclede, Mo.
  16. Lone Jack Cemetery, soldiers buried right on battlefield – Lone Jack, Mo.
  17. Quindaro Ruins, part of the Underground Railroad – Kansas City, Kan.
  18. Matfield Station, Santa Fe rail stop in the Flint Hills – Matfield Green, Kan.
  19. Mark Twain’s birthplace – Florida, Mo.

KCUR-FM is a service of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.


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