The 10 Best Specialty Museums in Wichita, Kansas (KS)

TRAINS, TRAINS AND MORE TRAINS! The Wichita Toy Train Club and Museum, 130 S. Laura, Wichita, KS is open the second and fourth weekends each month. Saturday hours 10:00 - 5:00 and Sundays 1:00 - 5:00. View historical train layouts, interactive train layouts, children's train room, learn to run trains. Come run the trains for fun.

Delve into hundreds of interactive exhibits that stimulate the mind and teach about science, and that's only inside the main building. Outside there's a park where visitors can observe Kansas wildlife in a wetlands habitat and dig for archeological treasures inside a giant sandbox.

Discover the treasures . . . around the world and through the ages. Where can you explore the crusty bones of long-lost creatures, marvel at Egyptian mummies, uncover the secrets of ancient civilizations, travel to the land of Conquistadors. and enter the battlefields of World Wars? The Museum of World Treasures, with more than 3,000 artifacts on three floors. Discover your inner explorer!

The Kansas African American Museum, formerly the venerable Calvary Baptist Church was once the cornerstone of Wichita's vibrant black community. It was built in 1917 when the congregation's leaders worked nights and weekends -separate and apart from their jobs to finish the church. That community featured restaurants, businesses and homes. It hosted jazz artists, Negro League baseball stars, and was the home of America's first African American Academy Award winner and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s lawyer among others. This building stands as a monument to human endurance as well as to dignity. The people who worshiped here endured painful racial segregation and fought those conditions with dignity. That's why when Calvary Baptist Church relocated in 1972, Doris Kerr Larkins and others fought to protect this building from urban renewal's wrecking ball. Larkins and many others launched the First National Black Historical Society in 1973. By 1993, the building joined the National Register of Historic Places and in 1997, became the Kansas African American Museum.

The Mid-America All-Indian Center is the only facility of its kind in Kansas that is solely dedicated to educating people about and preserving the art and culture of American Indians. The Indian Center invites visitors to stroll through its many areas that include: A museum with exhibits of contemporary art and cultural artifacts that depict the American Indian nations of the past and present. Many of the exhibits have interactive aspects and hands on items for the kids. Seasonal outdoor learning center, which include a full-size tipi and native gardening area. Gift Shop selling American Indian-made items, music, movies, jewelry and Keeper of the Plains items. Large indoor area, known as the Gallery of Nations, contains nearly 100 flags of Indian nations. It is the area where special events and private rentals take place. The center not only showcases local tribes, but those throughout the United States and Canada. It is not affiliated with one particular tribe, so the Mid-America All-Indian Center is a place where are American Indians and the general public can come to share their experiences, learn and interact with each other. There are 10,000 American Indians representing 73 tribes in the Wichita area.

In 1958, two brothers - both Wichita University students- started a restaurant in a building on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg. They sold pizza, a dish that just beginning to gain popularity in America. They staffed their business with family, friends and fraternity brothers and called it Pizza Hut. Wichita State students help tell the story of the original Pizza Hut. The Museum is free and open to the public at Wichita State University.