Barton County Historical Society Museum and Village

Museum and VillageBarton County Historical Society Barton County Historical Society

Shaping the future by teaching the past

The Barton County Historical Society Museum and Village is located on fi ve acres just south of Great Bend on U.S. 281 and includes several buildings fi lled with artifacts and documents that tell the story of Barton County.

Th e narrative runs from the pre-Columbian era when Native Americans hunted at Cheyenne Bottoms to the history of the Santa Fe Trail and later the railroads. It continues through two World Wars and beyond, to recent history.

Local historian Karen P. Neuforth, who had served as executive co-director of the museum with Leslie Helsel since 2019, died in March of 2021. Karen dedicated her life to community service and historical research. She was the museum’s research director from 1986 to 2019.

A new executive director, Richard Lartz II, was selected and Helsel became offi ce manager. Lartz came to the museum from the Santa Fe Trail Center in Larned.

Th e historical society members continue to seek new ways to better tell the history of central Kansas, and as it turns out, that history is still used to potentially shape the present and the future in a time of crisis.

As Great Bend Tribune reporter Veronica Coons wrote in March 2020, Hays manufacturer Hess Services Inc. contacted the Museum at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Th e fi rm sought to use an iron lung on display at the museum to help design a modern version that might potentially be used to help treat COVID-19 patients.

“We are very proud here that we could help in only a small way,” Helsel said at the time.

According to an earlier report by Tribune news editor Susan Th acker about the display, the unit was donated to St. Rose Hospital by Aerie No. 646 of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

“By 1986, thanks to widespread use of Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, its use was no longer vital and it was retired,” Th acker wrote in the report.

Th e village also includes historic buildings such as a church, one-room schoolhouse, post offi ce and railroad depot, along with newer buildings added to house antique farm equipment and other large artifacts.

It is just one of many ways the museum hopes to shape the present and future of Barton County by teaching visitors about its past.