Exploring Missouri’s Legends: Unveiling the Stories Behind the State’s Iconic Figures

Casual Disney fans may not know that the man who made Mickey Mouse grew up in the small town of Marceline, Missouri, or that he loved trains so much that he built a miniature railroad in the backyard of his home in Los Angeles. For dedicated Disney admirers, the Walt Disney Hometown Museum offers a fascinating look at one of the country’s most influential animators. Established in 2001, the museum is housed in the restored Santa Fe Railroad depot in Marceline, and is home to a collection of memorabilia from the farm where the Disney family lived from 1905 to 1909 as well as mementos donated by Disney’s sister.

The Missouri State Penitentiary was the first prison west of the Mississippi River and accepted its first inmate in 1836. By 1932, it had the largest population of any American prison with 5,200 inmates. At one point, famous boxer Sonny Liston served time here before he went on to lose his world heavyweight title to Muhammad Ali. Countless injuries and deaths within the facility and a major riot in 1954 led Time Magazine to deem it “the bloodiest 47 acres in America.” The prison is now a historic site. In addition to hosting history tours the penitentiary features ghost tours and hunts, including an overnight stay.

This simple Missouri home went down in American history when the infamous Wild West bank robber Jesse James was gunned down inside. After years of living outside the law, James had attempted to settle down (at least for a while) with his family in St. Joseph, but a $10,000 reward for his capture led his former partner, Robert Ford, to gun him down at home. Today, it holds a museum to James’ life and death inside, complete with a bullet hole in the wall that dates back to the shooting.

Thomas Hart Benton became famous for his paintings of everyday American life, often focused on scenes from the American South and Midwest. He was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889, and while he studied and worked in Chicago, Paris, and New York, he returned to his home state in the 1930s, and never left again. His home, which doubled as his studio, has been lovingly preserved as a museum highlighting his work and life. His studio has been left untouched, offering visitors an intimate look at this prolific artist’s process.

Laura Ingalls Wilder moved around a lot during her life, but she spent her final years in Mansfield, Missouri, and her house has become one of the great historic sites dedicated to her legacy. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum is the place where she settled with Almanzo and their daughter, Rose, and where she wrote her Little House books. Here, visitors have the opportunity to see and experience Laura’s homes, the historic farmhouse and the Rock House on Rocky Ridge, plus “Laura’s Vegetable Garden”, an addition created to honor Laura’s passion for gardening. The museum also houses handwritten manuscripts for the Little House books, Laura’s needlework, Almanzo’s tools, and many other keepsakes that readers will recognize.

Surely you’ve seen them, maybe in your grandmother’s house, or the stores of a local Goodwill: Precious Moments figurines. These sweet little sculptures of angelic figures, created by Samuel J. Butcher, became incredibly popular as collectibles in the 1980s and ‘90s. As Mr. Butcher’s success grew, he decided to create a complex consisting of a chapel and gardens to celebrate what his creations meant to him. The centerpiece is the Precious Moments Chapel, decorated in Sistine-Chapel splendor with images of the Precious Moments cherubs. The chapel is surrounded by gardens bedecked with sculptures; the visitor center chronicles the development of Mr. Butcher’s artwork and industry.

This unassuming house was once the home of John William Boone, the famous American ragtime musician. As a kid growing up in Missouri, he was first introduced to the piano after his hometown rallied and raised enough funds to send him to the St. Louis School for the Blind. He went on to tour the entire United States, as well as Canada and Mexico. Boone and his wife, Eugenia Lange, bought this house in the late 1880s. Today, it has been painstakingly restored to the way it looked when Boone lived there. And it is filled with sculptures, artifacts, and memorabilia that commemorate Boone’s life and legacy.

Some might be surprised to see a museum dedicated to one of history’s most famous Englishmen in a small town in Missouri. However, Fulton is home to the Westminster College campus, where Churchill gave his famous “Sinews of Peace” speech in 1946. This was the speech in which he coined the term “Iron Curtain” and, according to some historians, effectively began the Cold War. The museum is housed in a 17th-century church, St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, that was destroyed in the London “Blitz” and brought stone by stone to Missouri. When it was reassembled, the London Times called it “perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture.”

This museum is dedicated to the work and legacy of Dr. Andrew Still, who coined the term osteopathy in 1874, emphasizing the role of the musculoskeletal system in health and disease. Located at A.T. Still University, the collection celebrates the practice’s history and founder. Its main gallery features more than a dozen exhibits, ranging from a dissected human nervous system—one of only four such dissections known to exist—to a reproduced Victorian parlor showcasing personal property of A.T. Still and his family.

Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, before becoming one of the country’s most influential authors. While he’s best known for his characters Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, his childhood traces back to a small house in this charming town, where you can now take a self-guided tour of the nine buildings that comprise the museum. Twain’s boyhood home has been carefully preserved, with personal artifacts and original furniture on display. From there, you can visit the Interpretive Center, which tells the story of Twain’s early life, and the “Huckleberry Finn House,” a reconstruction of the home thought to be the model for Huck’s family house. You can even visit the whitewash fence that Sawyer convinced his friends to paint for him.