Wichita museum takes a leap: ‘I just want to see lots of people there all the time’

Like many people who have decided to start taking Social Security, Lon Smith still wanted to make some extra money — but not too much per Social Security rules — and have a purpose.

So about six weeks ago, he asked himself, “What’s three things I really love?”

One is trains, a lifelong passion.

Another is museums, a number of which he’s led in Wichita.

“And the third is helping . . . small nonprofits grow.”

So Smith approached the Great Plains Transportation Museum downtown, which has been an all-volunteer nonprofit since it started 42 years ago.

“They’d never considered an employee,” Smith said. “I really had to sell them on the efficacy of having an employee to help move the institution forward.

He successfully convinced them. Now, the new executive director said, “I just want to see this institution grow.”

The museum grew out of the Great Plains Railway Museum, which had been at Union Station but closed in 1977 when it lost its home there.

The idea was to eventually reopen there, but the city sold the station, and the museum’s contents remained in storage until volunteers came together to start the new museum.

Long before Wichita was the Air Capital of the World, Smith said much of the commerce in south-central Kansas was conducted through trains.

“That’s a really critical part of our local history. . . . So it’s important that we preserve that history, and they have a lot of it there to preserve.”

Smith previously has led the Kansas Aviation Museum, the Museum of World Treasures, Field Station: Dinosaurs in Derby and the Wichita Independent Business Association, and he said he knows what to do to make an organization successful.

“One of the really critical things is to increase the number of revenue streams so that it can not only survive but flourish going forward.”

He plans to build new indoor and outdoor children’s education and activity centers at the museum, which he said will increase the likelihood of memberships, which can create more money for preservation efforts.

Another goal is “making that institution a critical part of the plan for the downtown area.”

While there are some limitations at the site, which is along the train tracks at 700 E. Douglas by Union Station, Smith said that “on the other hand we’re right . . . in the middle of everything.”

The museum is about 14 feet wide and 100 feet long on two levels, and it has a couple of football field-size outdoor spaces along the elevated tracks.

The inside upper level is an open exhibit space that has mostly been a static display.

“We’re going to start rotating exhibits in and out,” Smith said.

The back part of the building isn’t currently usable because of some loading docks, which Smith said he needs to take out.

There are about half a dozen locomotives on the tracks in various states of restoration.

“Everybody knows the steam locomotive,” Smith said of the black early 20th century passenger train atop the tracks right at Douglas Avenue.

He also plans to turn the museum into a venue that people can rent.

“It’ll be a fun venue. . . . You want people to have fun.”

At least a couple of times a year, he wants to host events specifically for younger people to attract them to the space.

“I just want to see lots of people there all the time,” Smith said.

“That’s what museum people always dream of.”