Dorothy's House, Liberal Kansas

Seward County Historical Museum

On one of her trips to California, our daughter, Sandi, stopped to visit Dorothy's House in Liberal, Kansas and thought it was a hoot. We decided since we were close, we should head over and see the Yellow Brick Road.

When we arrived we found out that we were behind three groups of school children that would be taking the tour so we had to wait about an hour to get one ourselves. We could have taken a tour with the last set of school children but we decided the 15 minutes of wait time might be worth it so we could hear what was being said. In the meantime we walked around the Seward County Historical Museum and took in all the exhibits. I found some old postcards in one of the cases from Liberal that were just too cute!

We also stopped in the Gift Shop and bought a book on Dorothy's trip to OZ and a sticker book for Addi's birthday. Of course, we had to send the youngest three grandchildren postcards too!

The yellow brick road

Bronze Statue of Dorothy

Mary following the yellow brick road

Sage brush inside the museum - we actually saw a lot of this blowing around as we drove through Kansas!  We also saw a road runner.  We thought we were too far north for both but we were wrong!

More Sage Brush

Clothing Exhibits

Seward County Exhibits

Lee Checking out The Exhibits

The postcard that I thought were really cute!

Bison Skull

Lee checking out names on the Yellow Brick Road

Finally, we were ready for our tour and a young woman dressed as Dorothy arrived to take us on the tour. She first showed us the yellow brick road which is made up of painted blocks of cement with the names of people who donated money to the Oz project. She showed us one from President Reagan and his wife. Then she took us on to a life-sized replica of Dorothy's house which was restored and furnished as closely to the house in the movie as possible.

President Ronald and Nancy Reagan were contributors

Dorothy's House

Living Room

Our guide did a nice job of telling us about the features of the home and about the various items that were used for preparing food, separating milk, ironing, making soap, etc. It always makes me respect the people of those times when I visit a place like this. They worked from sun rise to sun set just because they didn't have any of our modern conveniences including indoor plumbing! Since we live in a fifth wheel, I feel like I am roughing it because I don't have a dish washer!!

Kitchen

Pantry

The Land of Oz Building

After the tour of the house, our Dorothy took us to the Land of Oz which is a 5,000 square foot building with exhibits, some animated. As Dorothy led us through the exhibit, she sang portions of the songs from the movie. It was kind of cute but would probably better appreciated by younger children. 

Exhibit- House fell on the Wicked Witch of the East

Meeting Scarecrow

Meeting Tin Man

The Cowardly Lion

Animated Wizard of Oz

Trying to Get Home By Way of Balloon

This was the actual house that was used in the movie to do the tornado scene.

As we left the Oz exhibits, Dorothy took us through the rest of the building which housed a lot of memorabilia from the movie. This was the part of the tour that I enjoyed the most.

Lots of Memorabilia From the Movie

Lots of Dolls

The End of the Tour

Lee and the Tin Man

As far as a review goes, I would say that if you are going to be in the area, it is worth a stop. It was kind of fun and the museum and home were interesting. If you have children, then I would definitely stop. As adults, Lee and I really enjoyed The OZ Museum in Wamego, Kansas better. It houses over 2000 artifacts relating to L. Frank Baum's books and the Wizard of Oz movie which were mostly collected by one man who donated his collection to the city of Wamego. If you are an Oz fan, I'd say you should drive a few extra miles to check that one out!