09/01/2026
We had a VERY interesting day working at the museum on Saturday. What started as our usual work day on a new project, ended with a bang.
Our new KU intern and CLHS Board Member have begun a huge project that will involve an inventory all of the museum's collections and reassigning storage locations to use the space more efficiently. We have already seen some interesting items that have not been unboxed in years, like a full, hand-sewn, twill suit for a child from the 1930s or the charter of the American Sunbathers Assoc. (a nudist club formed in the late 1950s in Kanwaka Township).
But it was the next box that made us pause and step back. A WW1 75mm Model H Shell was staring back at us. From the briefest of notations, written in 1996, all we knew was who donated it. Nothing about if it had been decommissioned or made inert. Nothing about how it got here. We did know it was really heavy and something made a noise inside when moved. š¬
The Douglas County Non Emergency Office (Douglas County Sheriff's Office) was called and we were told to leave it be and wait outside. (This shell has been in the basement since 1996!). The deputies showed up and were just as curious as we were. The shell was taken to Ft Riley to be examined. It was x-rayed multiple times and found to have a "concerning substance." So, in the end, the shell was destroyed. I'm sure it was used as part of a training exercise for the bomb squad. Unfortunately, all that is left are the photos and the memories of a very unusual day at the museum.
