Pioneer-Krier Museum

The Clark County Historical Society organized in 1939 and spent three decades in borrowed rooms: the old courthouse, then a basement room in the new courthouse of 1951, until the commissioners needed the space in 1964. Its own building on West Fourth Street, which is US-160 through Ashland, was dedicated on May 30, 1968. Inside is the ordinary inventory of a cattle-grazing county, laid out room by room: a country store with its cracker barrel, a schoolroom, bank, church and barbershop furnishings, saddles, a blacksmith shop and covered wagons, along with fossil bones dug in the north of the county.

The name comes from the north wing, added in 1974 to hold three airplanes of Harold Krier, whose championship aerobatics took him to competitions in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain. Two remain on display, the Flying Chipmunk and a Great Lakes biplane.

The other local son in the cases ran. Wes Santee, born in Ashland in 1932 and called the Ashland Antelope, set a state record in the mile at Ashland High School, won the NCAA cross-country title for Kansas in 1953 and ran the 5,000 meters at the 1952 Olympics. In 1954 and 1955 he chased the four-minute mile against Roger Bannister and John Landy and came within half a second, 4:00.5. In 1956 the Amateur Athletic Union banned him for life over expense payments, ending his chance at the Melbourne Games. He was inducted into the national track and field hall of fame in 2005.