"Little House on the Prairie" Day

Last Friday, the boys and I drove just a matter of minutes away from home — practically running distance — to the Shoal Creek Living History Museum. It's a collection of more than 20 mid-19th Century historic buildings, owned by Kansas City Parks & Rec, and this is the first time we'd ever been there. And it's completely free!

The David Y. Stollings home (what kind of name starts with "Y"?), built between 1883 and 1889, originally set on land south of Kearney, Mo. The picket fence was built in 2004 as an Eagle Scout project.

The Daniel G. Hughes cabin was constructed in 1825 and was moved here from Happy Rock Park in Gladstone, where it was found inside a large farmhouse. It's called a double dog-trot cabin because of the roof covering the area between the two cabins.

This was originally the home of Issac Neff and constructed prior to 1855 near the community of Roosterville. Today it's designated as a doctor's office and home, with the medicinal herb garden in the back.

You can see that we were the only ones there; we had the entire 80-acre site to ourselves. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and see Jack testing his vertical in order to ring the school bell.

Built in 1830 by Garrard Arnold and moved here in 1976 from Claycomo. It's log construction beneath clapboard siding, but they've left the original logs exposed on the left side of the chimney.

The spring house.

Originally built in the 1850s in Parkville, this window's from the home of James Arnold, the first mayor of Parkville. It currently houses an 1876 reproduction mercantile and living quarters for a storekeeper and family.

The grist mill is the only structure built on site and is a replica of an 1824 mill built by Humphrey Smith along the Platte River near Smithville.

The Mt. Ararat Baptist Church was built in 1884 near Fayette and was in use until 1985 when it was moved here. But it's still available for weddings!

This small cabin was found on KCI Airport property enclosed in a metal barn. Built by the James Fox family in the 1830s, it originally was a single dog-trot cabin. But when the barn was dismantled, the backs of the cabins had deteriorated so much that only one cabin could be constructed from the original two. It's currently used as the carpentry shop.

The gravestones in this "cemetery" represent actual settlers to the Clay and Platte County area. These stones were moved to Shoal Creek by court order from small family cemeteries found on land being developed for KCI, North Oak Trafficway and the Hallmark Plant near Liberty. The actual remains were moved to nearby established cemeteries with new stones being erected for them.

They say close only counts in horseshoes ... and when you're three inches away.

The herb garden has medicinal and culinary herbs. The iron fence was moved and rebuilt from the small cemetery in front of Metro North Mall as an Eagle Scout project in 2004.

Though I carried Landon the entire time on my front in the Baby Bjorn, we finally managed to get him in a picture. The red barn on the far right is a 19th Century barn that originally stood on the Sam Ray Farm next to Hodge Park. It's now become the blacksmith barn and contains a large, centrally located brick forge.

This antebellum brick "mansion" was the original home of one of Clay County's earliest families. Colonel John Thornton, with the help of slaves, built it in 1829 near the site of the current Ford plant in Claycomo.

It was finally time to sit in the shade and enjoy our picnic lunch.

Jack pondering his pudding.


The well on the right was originally in the community of Barry, on the south side of Barry Road. It was on the same property as a log cabin (also moved to the Shoal Creek Living History Museum) discovered inside a small house when Barry Road was widened. That log structure was believed to have been a community store used by pioneers in wagons camping overnight, before going west to cross the Missouri River near Leavenworth, Kan.

"Big Brother" Jack thought the Baby Bjorn looked cool and wanted to try doing it himself. But it wasn't so easy to get it on Jack, nor to get Landon inside. Just more proof that Landon is so easy-going and the best baby ever.

We spent two full hours there and got our exercise doing lots of exploring. We'll definitely be back!