High Plains Museum

The High Plains Museum's feature attraction is a full sized, automated replica of the first patented helicopter in the United States. The original invention of Goodland residents W. J. Purvis and C. A. Wilson of Goodland, its single test in 1909 resulted in destruction of the helicopter and accusations of Fraud. The replica was built in 1976, using the original patent and the only known photo of the helicopter. - High Plains Museum


Needing another "stretch the leg" stop for the Little Ones, we decided to pull in to the  local museum of Goodland, Kansas. We weren't sure what to expect since we saw a little interstate sign advertising the small little town's museum.

 

We learned that the first patented helicopter was built here in Goodland, Kansas. We saw a helicopter that was built to the patent specifications in the museum and a picture of the original.

The History of the town was amazing and the archives were wonderful to view!

This little museum also claimed to have one of the first type writer that was made with the "QWERTY" keys. The story goes that Mr. Sholes kept having his keys from his typewriter jam up due to them being in alphabetical order. He mixed them up so they won't do that and that is how we have the keyboard that we type on today. It is called the qwerty keyboard.

The museum proved to be very interesting and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.