KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The National Frontier Trails Museum announced Friday it will vacate its current home in the Waggoner-Gates Milling Company Building July 1 before reopening in the Truman Memorial Building this fall.
The move will allow the Missouri Model Railroad Museum to start remodeling the Waggoner-Gates building, located at 318 W. Pacific, with the goal of opening in Spring 2024.
The National Frontier Trails Museum would then reopen this fall in the basement of the Truman Memorial Building, located at 416 W. Maple Ave.
“There is so much history in our community and we understand how vital it is to our residents and visitors,” Independence City Councilman Dan Hobart said in a news release Friday.
Hobart says the model railroad museum will help to tell the story of how, 200 years ago, Independence got its start as a trading post for those traveling west in the mid 1800s.
“The Waggoner-Gates building was one of the many companies that leveraged our rail system to distribute goods across the country,” Missouri Model Railroad Museum President Dale Shipman said. “We look forward to bringing yet another story to this great building and the community.”
The City Council signed-off on the move in April, with plans to share the city’s “new Tourism Master Plan” later this summer.
“We want to emphasize this is not the closing chapter of the National Frontier Trails Museum,” Hobart said in the release. “This is a new page and it is full of exciting possibilities for our community.”
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