Liberty Memorial

The memorial tower above the National WWI Museum; at night steam and light form a "flame" at its top.

Congress named the museum the official national World War I museum in 2004, and in 2014 it also became the official war memorial. At night, light and steam rise from the top of the tower so that it looks like a flame burning high above the city, a bright reminder of the people the memorial remembers.

How did it begin?

Soon after World War I ended, forty well-known Kansas City citizens formed the Liberty Memorial Association to build a memorial. In 1919 they ran a fund drive with 83,000 contributors that raised more than 2.5 million US dollars in under two weeks, which was a huge amount at that time. The architect was Harold Van Buren Magonigle, and the landscape designer was George Kessler. The memorial opened in 1926 and later grew into a full museum.

What can you see today?

The museum closed in 1994 for renovations and reopened in December 2006 with a larger space. Visitors cross a glass bridge above a field of 9,000 red poppies, and each poppy stands for 1,000 combatant deaths. The museum teaches about the causes of the war before 1914, the armistice of 1918 and the peace talks in Paris in 1919. By 2025 its collection included more than 350,000 items, one of the largest on the subject.

On the globe

The model shows the memorial tower with a glowing flame of steam and light at the top. Look for the tall tower above the museum building.