ROBINSON’S RAMBLINGS

The Broadway Diner is a museum in itself as an historic Columbia eatery.

A Trek Through History

TRACKING THE MOVEMENTS OF FIVE DOWNTOWN COLUMBIA MUSEUMS.

Ibegan my museum tour at Broadway Diner, a museum in itself, a marriage of prefab form and hot griddle function. This historic Columbia eatery has moved at least once and changed names thrice, from the Minute Inn to Fran’s to Broadway Diner.

Duly fortified with the two basic food groups — bacon and eggs — I entered the next museum a few blocks away.

Three years ago, the State Historical Society of Missouri moved from Elmer Ellis Library to the spacious new three-story structure at Locust and Elm streets, overlooking Peace Park. Its museum offers a spectacular venue to view priceless works of art including Thomas Hart Benton’s Year of Peril series and George Caleb Bingham’s Order No. 11, a lightning rod for emotions during the Civil War, depicting Union Gen. Ewing’s command to burn four western Missouri counties to the ground. The museum hosts what it calls the “nation's best collection of Missouri regional and westward expansion art,” including one of the largest collections of Bingham paintings.

If weather keeps you from visiting, go online: The State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Collections display photographs, art, maps, diaries, letters, newspapers, books, articles and oral histories of Missouri’s people and culture.

What goes around comes around. After eight years of exile from the main campus — when a wrecking ball smashed Pickard Hall to fist-sized bricks — two world class museums once again will join the student body, moving to the renovated ground floor of Ellis Library, former digs of the State Historical Society of Missouri. The museums are scheduled to open any minute after an Ellis Library makeover worthy of Lancome or La Mer.

Some items at the Museum of Anthropology have waited thousands of years for you to see them. Take the kids to see a giant whale jawbone or the 1,100-year-old dugout canoe. See a cat skin quiver, a holder for poison blow gun darts and a piranha jaw sharpener in the Grayson collection of archery tools — the largest in the world. An Aleut parka, made from dried and sewn seal intestine and decorated with bird beaks and feathers, looks like it came off the rack at Chico’s.

The Museum of Art and Archaeology has more than 16,000 priceless relics of

BY JOHN DRAKE ROBINSON · PHOTO BY L.G. PATTERSON

form, function and fashion spanning seven millennia. The collection includes ancient pottery and sculptures, jewelry and coins, and some fun surprises, including George Romney’s portrait of Lady Hamilton, who was Admiral Nelson’s mistress and “the pinup girl of the time,” according to Bruce Cox, the museum’s interim director.

Half a century ago, the university’s study collection of art and artifacts evolved into the Museum of Art and Archeology, thanks in large part to a bequest of 14 old master paintings from the Kress Foundation. Joining these works are thousands of priceless artifacts, including a Greek and Roman coin collection that complements Samuel Kress’ transcendence from dime-store magnate.

The museum’s collections are stunning, from Andy Warhol photographs of Deborah Harry and Kathleen Turner relaxing in public to a platter designed by Pablo Ruiz Picasso. (I didn't know his full name is Pablo Ruiz Picasso. It's not. His full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso. Great password.) Like Picasso’s name, these museums display only a fraction of their collections. Google their online displays.

After a busy day museum hopping, my breakfast had worn off. So I headed to one last museum.

Booches knows about moving. They’ve hauled those classic slate pool tables five times to different downtown locations. But not in a long time.

Booches is more than the sum of its parts. In the pantheon of pool halls, Booches is a museum whose owner got his Booche nickname from writer Eugene Field. I ordered a Stag Beer and two Booche burgers, and tried to recite Field’s Wynken, Blynken and Nod, a poem my mother read to me a thousand times.

Browsing the classic photos on Booches’ walls, I could hear Harry Truman’s voice: “There’s nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.”

John Drake Robinson is a former director of the Missouri Division of Tourism and has driven every mile of highway in the state. Read more of John's rants at johndrakerobinson.com/blog.