National WWI Museum and Memorial

Kansas City lost 441 of its people in the First World War, and in 1919 its citizens raised $2.5 million in ten days to build a memorial. President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Liberty Memorial in 1926. Its 217-foot tower carries an observation deck and the Flame of Inspiration, made of steam and light, and four 40-foot Guardian Spirits carved by Robert Aitken and named Honor, Courage, Patriotism and Sacrifice. Along the north wall runs the Great Frieze that Edmond Amateis, a veteran of the war, sculpted in 1935.

The two halls beside the tower were the whole museum from 1926 to 1994. Memory Hall now holds what is left of the Panthéon de la Guerre, a panorama painted in Paris during the war, 402 feet around and 45 feet high, with about 6,000 Allied figures. After touring the United States it was stored outdoors until a Baltimore restaurateur, William Haussner, bought it at auction in 1953. In 1957 the Kansas City artist Daniel MacMorris persuaded him to give it to the Liberty Memorial Association, then cut out sections and rearranged them around the American section to fit the hall's north wall.

The museum itself lies under the courtyard. Visitors cross a glass bridge over a field of 9,000 poppies, each standing for 1,000 of the war's dead. The main gallery, The World War, 1914-1919, has walk-in trench settings, a field hospital in a bombed church and a French Renault FT-17 tank that served until a German shell disabled it in 1918.