You can find many interesting and unique museums in Kansas. Hutchinson has the Cosmosphere and Strataca Salt Museum. Greensburg, the Big Well Museum, and Hays, the Sternberg Natural History Museum. You can find the newly opened Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison and the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene. However, there’s one museum you may not even know about that is one of the most unique in the world: the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum. Martin and Osa Johnson were pioneers in filmmaking and nature documentaries. In the early 20th century, the couple were the first to travel to places like Africa and the South Pacific with film equipment to document wildlife and native cultures. Martin Johnson was born in Lincoln, Kansas, in 1884 and raised in Independence. He traveled to the South Pacific as a cook and photographer for author and adventurer Jack London. Though he had met his future wife Osa several years before when he photographed her brother, he was reintroduced to her when he lectured on his travels with London in Osa’s hometown of Chanute. They married soon after, and after briefly planning to operate a movie theater in Independence, Martin convinced Osa to travel to film in the South Pacific. It was the first of many films for the couple that became highly successful.
Source: KSNT 27 News
