Episode 12 - Shawnee Town 1929
Doug Donahoo
Doug, you're listening to the Shawnee pulse podcast. Hello and welcome. My name is Doug Donohoe, communications director for the city of Shawnee. Thank you for joining us on this special episode as we take a trip back in time, roughly 100 years to the mid to late 1920s That's right, we're going back about 100 years, but just down the street from downtown Shawnee to Shawnee town, 1929
Doug Donahoo
Well, here we are back in 1929 we're at Shawnee town, 1929 and I think the surprising thing is that there's electricity and central air conditioning, which I don't think was actually around in 1929 Charlie Pautler and Hannah Howard are here to talk about all things Shawnee town, 1929 thank you both for being here. It's a pleasure. Yes, I think the, I think the audio equipment is, is non period specific, too correct, not period accurate. I guess we would say,
Hannah Howard
I mean, this is the origin point of the radio. So, you know, we are, we're going back to your roots
Doug Donahoo
here. That's true. That's true. I think families in Shawnee gather around the computer to listen to the Shawnee pulse podcast when it releases on it on a monthly basis, fireside podcast. Absolutely, absolutely pleasure to have you both with us to talk about Shawnee town 1929 especially going into the fall season. We're getting out of the summer months, but there's still a lot happening going into the fall here, Shawnee town, 1929 but before we get to that, let's introduce you both to the city, Charlie, starting with you, what is your job here at Shawnee town, 1929,
Charlie Pautler
I am the museum director, and I've been here for 13 years, but I've been in the museum profession for I don't know. I stopped counting after 30 about 3435 years, at some point it just all becomes history. It does you become part of the story. You become so old and they carbon date you? They yes, they cut you down in rings.
Doug Donahoo
I think it's nice that they don't make you sit out front as an exhibit all the time, right
Charlie Pautler
or but it's nice being a statue though, in public parks and facilities.
Doug Donahoo
Hana, how about yourself?
Hannah Howard
Hi, I'm Hannah Howard, I'm the curator of education here at Shawnee town 1929 and I've been here for coming up on five years, but I've been in the museum field for just across the 15 year threshold, so I'm still counting. But yeah, we're getting up
Doug Donahoo
there. Hannah, where were you before arriving at Shawnee town 1929 Well,
Hannah Howard
I've migrated, just like the German immigrants to Shawnee. I have come from the East Coast. Okay, and I was in Nashville for six years before coming here. I was at a site called Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, presidential site there in Nashville. And before that, I was at a 17th Century colonial site, which was called Pennsbury Manor, State Historic Sites just outside Philadelphia, and before that, I was back in North Carolina with my family finishing up school, so kind of made a little route, okay?
Doug Donahoo
And Charlie, you've also run the gamut of facilities and museums. Where else have you been helping share the story of history in other communities?
Charlie Pautler
Sure. Well, I've enjoyed living really all across the country. So the first five years out of grad school, I worked in the Deep South, in Huntsville, Alabama, at a place called Burritt Museum and park, and that's where I kind of honed my my restoration skills and my interpretive skills, as far as building a program and restoring buildings and building a program around those buildings. And then for 16 years, I went to the Far North. So I went from Alabama to Minnesota, oh yes, that is the Far North. I bought a snow shovel and a snow blower, and worked at two different sites eight years each. I worked at the Charles Lindbergh Historic Site, which was the famed aviators boyhood home. And then before that, for eight years I worked at at Forestville, place called historic Forestville, which is a 1899 town that was really trapped in time when the railroad went around them.
Doug Donahoo
Okay, well now you're both here at Shawnee town, 1929 it's interesting that the museum seemed to base it on the nines that,
Charlie Pautler
yeah, at least two of them
Doug Donahoo
talk a little bit about the history of Shawnee town in its place here in the city of Shawnee, helping tell that story, I believe correct that it started as an independent Museum.
Charlie Pautler
It did it, and it began with when the suburbs were being were growing, back in the mid 60s, and you had, after World War Two, a lot of these farmlands and farm scapes were being bought up by developers, and they were building housing developments. They were building factories. They were coming over on this side of the state line to develop the side of Kansas City. So the. People of Shawnee saw these places disappearing, and they made a couple tries to start kind of a historical society. In 1959 there was a place called the wagon Masters House, which was right at the crossroads of Shawnee Mission Parkway in Neiman road. And it was the home of a man that was the wagon master. He led these, these down the Santa Fe Trail, these wagon parties down there. He would take wagon loads of settlers down there to make it all the way to Santa Fe.
Doug Donahoo
Now, is that location roughly where the trail Scout statue is today, or on the south side of Shawnee Mission Parkway,
Charlie Pautler
where I believe it was on the south side? Okay, yeah. And in it, that building was torn down in 1959 and it was a spectacularly built limestone building, and it was built by a couple of the Garrett brothers who came to this area from England in the 1850s and the Garrett name figures prominently in Johnson County and Shawnee history, there was a movement to try and save that building and and bring it somewhere else that was out of danger. It became the the grocery store parking lot for vans grocery and for, for many years, it was a very successful grocery store, anyway, that didn't work out. So they saved the stones, which eventually ended up in Shawnee Mission Park. And then in 1966 just a few years later, where the Vita craft factory was they were going to be doing an expansion where a city, kind of behind city hall is now the factory still there. Yep, there was another stone structure, and it was known back then as the first territorial jail of Kansas, which we've done a lot of research since then, and we've we figured it was more of a storehouse instead of a jail. But the the Concerned Citizens moved stone by stone out to this park, which was at the time of county park and and they started this idea of having a community museum. They erected that first building. The next spring of 1967 they had erected another block. So they created this place called Old Shawnee town. And over the years, they built more and more buildings to represent that bygone era that they felt was being eaten up by modern progress. And so they concentrated very heavily on the 19th century, from the Pioneer period, really, through maybe the turn of the century. So a fair stretch of time they were trying to cover, I'd say they covered about 70 years. Wow, yeah, which is a lot. It's a very aggressive interpretive program. Now let's back up. These were all volunteers. There was no professional staff. They called themselves the Shawnee Historical Society, and they did wonderful things for our community. They preserved some original buildings. They moved them here. They also preserved a lot of lifestyles and life ways and to show, interpretively to modern 1960s 70s, 80s people what it looked like when their great grandparents were were around. So in the 1850s 1860s this part of Kansas, they they attempted to show what you know, what an undertaker shot looked like, what a state bank looked like, what the stone jail looked like. And you know, they preserved a lot of artifacts for us, and they preserved a lot of stories. So we are indebted to them, no matter how far we move now in the future with our interpretive and educational programming, we owe those early museum pioneers who are interpreting the Pioneer era. We owe them a lot.
Doug Donahoo
Well, Hannah, how important is it to have those volunteers, to have those people who are so interested in preserving history.
Hannah Howard
They were pioneers, just like Charlie said, they were doing something that hadn't been done before, really, in the in the history of humanity, historic preservation and kind of this interest in not only preserving what was, but recreating it so that it's playing in front of you in real life. This was a brand new concept. You know, archeology really got its kick off, and like the the teens and the 20s and the 30s, right? That that kind of heyday of early and that sparks the interest
Doug Donahoo
I've seen Indiana Jones, I know when he started his work, yeah, yes, exactly, exactly.
Hannah Howard
And they, you know, they, they really kind of were trying something new. So all of the volunteers that started old Shawnee town, and they were part of a movement happening in the 60s and 70s. The Bicentennial, you know, America's 200th birthday was hitting in 1976 and so there was just this growing interest for for preserving historic buildings, not just knocking them down for progress, but also, how do you picture, you know, this is the early days, still of television. And you know, we are we. Humanity is a species of story, and we love story, and we tell stories. We are telling a story. Now, right, so, and you're listening and so, so this was a new avenue for telling those stories and and sharing those cultural memories.
Doug Donahoo
So at what point then did the Shawnee Historical Society go to the city, or perhaps vice versa, to have the museum become a part of the city of Shawnee and the Parks and Recreation Department?
Charlie Pautler
So the Shawnee Historical Society, in 1997 they started having meetings with the city, with city leaders. And because they saw that their organization was aging, they saw that they did not have the money to upkeep all of these buildings, issues that we're very familiar with now. But because this was a pioneer organization, they had never really, you know, run a museum through middle age and old age, and museums are like people and programs, they have a lifespan. And so by 1997 they needed help, so they looked to the city of Shawnee and the city's parks and recreation department. And luckily this we had city founders and leaders that had that vision. They could see how a Shawnee town could harness its energy and its stories to bring tourism in and tourism dollars and continue those historical stories.
Doug Donahoo
Is Shawnee unique in that way, that as a suburb, it has a very strong connection and respect for the history of the community, to foster it and grow it here as a part of this museum, I think is is a concept that perhaps is not embraced by other suburban communities, not necessarily in Kansas City, but just throughout the course of the country.
Charlie Pautler
Let's pick on Minneapolis Minnesota.
Doug Donahoo
Let's pick on Minneapolis Minnesota. They're not here. They can't argue with let's
Charlie Pautler
pick a fight with a big dog. I was yeah, for the State Historical Society, this is up to you. Yeah, I'll probably never be permitted back across the Iowa border. But yeah. So the city of Minneapolis has historically knocked down a lot of its older treasures for progress, and this is constantly a battle that you have as people who are concerned about our history are interested in the stories being carried from generation to generation, that when you see an old building and you want to save it, and it's downtown And it's right next to a skyscraper, and there's another building, another land owner that wants to buy that land or build something. There you do sometimes be. You are seen as in the way of progress, but you also have to look at it. Society isn't just about buildings and money. It's about it's about intellect. It's about learning, it's about the arts, it's about music, it's about all of these collective things. History is extremely important. We have to know where we came from so that we can be especially, you know, like today, we need to know our history so that we can make intelligent decisions for the future. So Minneapolis has kind of a checkered past, but to answer your question further, the city of Shawnee, I've lived a lot of different places, and the place that comes the closest to the passion of this people of Shawnee is probably Huntsville, Alabama. That's a city I was a municipal employee, but we had four museums in the city. I'm glad we don't have four museums for the city of Shawnee, but because this allows us to marshal our resources and really focus on one place. But I have not ever lived in a place where there is so much passion from the local people on their city. And when we kind of talk about the hometown feel, it was a hometown feel when there were 500 people living here in 1865 there's a hometown feel of now, what 80,070 70. Okay, I'm projecting into the future. That's but, but it really is a small feeling community, because everybody gets to know each other's name. They know each other's you know, business for better or worse, but they all want to come here, even if it's just for old Shawnee days one weekend a year. They all gather here at some point. And that shows me that they have a passion for this place and spending their dollars locally as well, as you know elsewhere.
Doug Donahoo
Well, Hannah, as Charlie said, choosing where to tell that story is important, and choosing what time frame in which to tell that story is also important. And obviously the early stages of when it was known as Old Shawnee town had a pretty big window. Now we've kind of narrowed that window down at Shawnee town, 1929 how was that specific time period selected for the museum today?
Hannah Howard
Well, I know it was quite a process the city kind of getting into the museum business as as we say. You know? What do you do with this space? What do you do with this, this site of buildings? It's a mixture of original buildings and and kind of 1970s creations. And, you know, how do you move forward? So, I know there was a long process of debating, what, what's the goal here, what's the purpose, you know, and after, after a number of years, and getting together, you know, panel of experts, a panel of locals, to all kind of give input and talk about this they landed on, on the 1920s and I think it's for a few reasons. So I think it was especially bold back in, you know, like 2000 when they were making this decision. It was even less in the past than it is today. Now we're now, we're kind of approaching the era where the people that lived in the 20s and 30s are passing away. They're not part of our community anymore, as much anymore. And, you know, but in 2000 they were still very much, still here. And so I think there was a lot of question, is this really history? Is this in the past, but, but they were able to vision that, yeah, we're quickly moving into an era where this is disappearing and and anybody that has living memory of it is going away. And Now's the chance that we can, that we can really jump in. So I'm fascinated. They, they picked it for, you know, a few reasons I know, you know, the city became a municipality in the 20s, this was considered the height of the truck farming era, which is the term we use a lot around here. Truck farming means growing things meant to haul to market. The word truck predates the invention of the automobile that that ancient word of of hauling goods to a marketplace. So that's what their focus was. They were selling fruits, vegetables, dairy products, eggs, anything they could make on their farms, they would sell at the market. And in this case, it was the Kansas City Missouri Farmers Market most of the time. So that's, that's the height of this kind of agricultural era. And there's, there's so many other things happening, the the rising technologies intersecting with the old ways that are still kind of here on the in the farming community. You have new radio, new automobiles, new electricity, telephones, all of these, these rising technologies kind of intersecting with that old world. And what's it like? What are the older generations think of all these new things, you know, what are the younger generations doing? They don't know the old world. They know this new world, and all of that's really relevant. I think all of us think that, you know, we've experienced that ourselves, where, you know, as as I get older, I'm a millennial, as I as I, you know, see new technologies and new social medias and all these things. I just, I'm just like, no, not another one. I can't, I can't think of learning another technology. I just too, too fast, too quick. I can't, can you slow down? We've all had that feeling, right? And the younger people, of course, have no knowledge of this. They just know the world they are in, right? And so that's all very relatable. And so I think that's made for a unique time period that we can study here. You know, all of these converging influences and the experiences of everyday people, in living in that world, and what's what's it like navigating that and in dealing with the new and dealing with the changes, and, you know, reconciling yourself to to an evolving world, all of that's very relatable.
Doug Donahoo
So Charlie, how does the museum then work to tell that story of a changing world in 1929 and how people are coming to terms with it? We we can talk about it here in a minute. But in 1929 the scars of World War One, or what was known at the time as the Great War, are still fresh. There are still people suffering from that, and people are yet as unaware that the next great international conflict is barely a decade away at that point.
Charlie Pautler
Yeah, and we, we are not just focused on the 1920s Han and I have a lot of discussions. It's like, you know, what's our footprint here? It's like, and we really kind of settled on, it's between the world wars. So the conclusion World War one up to the beginning of World War Two, that is our rich area, our rich field, which we hear
Doug Donahoo
about, our stories roughly two decades to Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Pautler
And so the way that we do it is through a variety of interpretive and educational mediums. We do everything from a school field trip, which is curriculum driven, we have living history portrayals, where we have volunteers and our staff dressed in the clothing, showing the life ways, showing the cooking, showing the gardening, that kind of thing, and interacting with the public in a very active present manner. We have lecture series in the spring and sometimes the fall where we have a historical historian come in and talk about X, Y or Z topic. So. Maybe talking about the men returning from World War One, talking about racial relations in the 1920s we had a wonderful author come here back in the spring, and he wrote a book on on, you know, racial relations and prejudice of the 1920s in Kansas. So we have historical concerts, you know, we have jamming on the green where we have a string band or a brass band. And this is where you can interpret everything from Americana, roots type music, almost to religious type gospel, all the way to the big band era of the late 30s, because it has to be connected to our historical mission. Somehow, sometimes it's overt, sometimes it's not, but, but, yeah, it's a history type program. We're going to sneak that education in. Somehow you're going to get an education, whether you don't know, yeah, that's right, and
Doug Donahoo
you like it. Well,
Hannah Howard
eventually you do not know that you're going to get educated. But you will at the end, one
Doug Donahoo
group that I'm sure shows up knowing they're going to learn something, are the school field trips. What is that experience like? Hannah sharing the story of Shawnee town, 1929 to a wide range of kids, not just from Shawnee, but all over the Kansas City Metro Area.
Hannah Howard
Yeah, it's really fun getting to have all of these grade schoolers come, you know, we have, especially, probably kindergarten through third grade is the biggest focal point for the like the public and private school field trips. They're coming from all over, you know, I think I counted about, you know, 18 different districts and areas from the surrounds they come from, you know, up to an hour and a half, two hours away, sometimes, to get to the museum. This spring, most recently, we had the entire second grade of the Kansas City Missouri School District come and that was a real amazing experience, because so many of these kids, they're city kids. They're coming from very different environments than some of the kids coming from, like Gardner and Olathe and West Shawnee and, you know, very different lives they, you know, they come here, and they're just marveling at things that we sometimes take for granted, like, look at the trees, look at the grass. Is that a hay bale? You know, like, very basic things, and that's the end, that's the hook, and then you really can start building the story and putting them in that position. We have. The fortunate thing about Shawnee town in general is how engaged the community has been with bringing their own family stories into the museum, bringing their family pictures, bringing the anecdotes from their parents and their grandparents, and that builds a rich history that makes my job so much easier to kind of bring those kids into this world. It becomes something they can touch and picture themselves in. And that to me, when you see that light bulb go off and they can, they can really grasp what they're looking at. Kids are very engaged. They absorb far more than we realize. They absorb everything around them, and they make the connections. You don't have to force it. They they will make those connections to their everyday life. That's what their brain is always trying to do. So it's a real joy getting to welcome all these kids from, when, wherever they come, whatever walk of life, whatever home situation, childhood, you know, environment they are in. They come here and and we get to find ways to connect with them, and that's just a real pleasure.
Doug Donahoo
Well, connecting with people is obviously a huge part of any museums overall mission to be able to share the story. And talked a little bit about jam on the green.
Hannah Howard
We have one more jammin coming up in September. It's going to be on September 24 at 7pm and we're going to close out the season with the Kansas City uksters, which, if you've never thought, hey, I want to spend a Wednesday night listening to a ukulele band. Let me tell you, you want to come and listen to these guys, because they can just knock your socks off.
Doug Donahoo
I bet they can. I can only imagine the kind of music you're going to hear from, how many ukuleles at the time?
Hannah Howard
I mean, I think there's at least 20.
Doug Donahoo
Yeah, that's a lot of ukuleles. Ukuleles.
Charlie Pautler
Yeah, at the end of the night, there are socks everywhere on the ground. They've all been
Doug Donahoo
knocked off. They've all been, yeah, they've all been collected. And they're into the, they're into the archives, right?
Hannah Howard
A real 1920s washer and ringer, we can, we can clean up. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. And it's, actually, it's really fun to watch the the band, the ukulele band, because several of their participants, this is a volunteer band, right? It's just a it's a group of people that just like playing together. And a number of their participants have taken the ukulele beginners classes that we host every winter. And so they go through a four week course, and they take lessons from the leader of this band, David and and so they get through his class, and then they join the band. And now they come out every year to play back where they kind of started, Shawnee
Doug Donahoo
town, 1929 really becomes a focal point of events happening in the city of Shawnee. You. Got the car show, and you've got great grillers. And I can't think of a couple of weekends better than that to have a bunch of really nice looking cars on the ground, and then a couple of weekends later have a bunch of people barbecuing meat.
Charlie Pautler
Yeah, and the craft fair, they're right in the middle. So we've got, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Doug Donahoo
I can appreciate a good craft fair, too, but really I'm going to focus on the cars and the barbecue.
Hannah Howard
Well, that's the good thing about Shawnee town, is we're building events for every interest and every every walk of life. We're going to have something for you, if you are not a craft person, but you're a car person, you know, that's, that's September 14, you know, one o'clock come out. And you know, we're going to have the craft fair the literally, the Saturday after on the 20th from nine to four. And then, you know, we've got the grillers at the end of the month, September, 26 and 27th no matter what your interest level is, we're gonna find a way to welcome you at Shawnee
Doug Donahoo
with all of these events. You bring an audience to the museum, and maybe they're here for the car show, maybe they're here for the barbecue. How do we use that as an opportunity to still talk to them about the history of Shawnee
Charlie Pautler
town. People come to us for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they come to us for a rental maybe they're here for a wedding reception, maybe they're here for the car show. Maybe they're here for old Shawnee days, our biggest event. And while they're here for events like old Shawnee days, we have historical things going on up at the farm. People often come to our events and see the background, which is the museum, and that's kind of the commercial. And then they come back when they have time, when they're they have time in the summertime to come and experience the program,
Doug Donahoo
when the summertime is really focused on being able to tell that story, right? Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Pautler
There's plenty of opportunity for people to come and take a tour, and they can, and there's even different opportunities within that structure. They can take a guided tour. They can go on their own. They can take our historical walking to our tablet, the tour that that Hana put together last last year. So even within that confine of a tour, there's many different options.
Doug Donahoo
Well, let's talk about a really big tour that you have returning this fall, in November, the veterans lantern light tour. Talk to me a little bit about how that program was developed and came to be.
Hannah Howard
This is definitely a big part of the 1920s story that a lot of people don't think about. They think about, you know, the Great War, as they call it, or World War One, as we know now, it was just the first one. And they don't think about kind of the long, lasting repercussions that come from those events that still linger within a people you know, even a decade later, when the veterans finally, kind of get themselves organized and start advocating for better support for veterans benefits from the US government, for, you know, better understanding of of, you know, health care, physical health care first, and then eventually they they start conversations about mental health, you know, all that's happening in the 20s. And so this event, the in their footsteps, a lantern walking tour. This is an evening living history event where you get to come to the museum. And we have set ourselves in 1927 veterans are advocating for benefits and rights, and they're talking about these experiences. They're talking, you know about what it's been like to try to recover from the war and go back to a quote, unquote, normal life the whole world is recreated for this evening, where you get to experience by walking from from scene to scene, from building to building and and getting to experience what the veterans are and in the townspeople And and the grieving families, for those that didn't return, what they're all kind of talking about, and what life is like in 1927
Doug Donahoo
How did we capture those stories?
Hannah Howard
So we have, we have had to do a lot of research, kind of digging into the records, just trying to paint a picture for who were veterans in Shawnee, we have a team of professionals here at the museum, myself, Charlie, several of others on staff that are, are really good at kind of diving into the to the records. I'm going to the census records, looking for, you know, they had a category where they would, you know, Mark, whether you were a veteran or not. You know, if you have some family oral history talking about the experiences, we've got several mentions from actual Shawnee families, because we did a whole series of oral history interviews about 20 years ago with the museum. We got dozens and dozens of people who were children in the 20s and 30s to give interviews. And there were several mentions of the veterans experience, of, you know, what it was like to have a, you know, a mother and father grieving a sibling and, you know, and then we have the photos as well. The photos can can help us paint that picture and help fill in the local details that add color to the bed. Your national story, which is, you know, very well documented. We have a lot of amazing books and documentaries that go into, you know, the Great War and everything that came afterward. But putting those Shawnee specific, those Kansas City Metro specific details about the experience, about the struggle, about what they were advocating for, just brings it all to life in a very local way.
Doug Donahoo
And Charlie, we talked about it at the beginning of our conversation that Shawnee time, 1929 started thanks to volunteers in Shawnee and now telling these stories as a part of the in their footsteps tour. A lot of that is being told by volunteers, absolutely. Well, how important are the volunteers in this this exhibit, but also just the day to day experience of Shawnee town, 1929
Charlie Pautler
Well, specifically for this event, for the veterans lantern tour, we have really specialized and knowledgeable volunteers. We have Sean Faulkner, who's the head of the history program at the Command and General Staff College out at Leavenworth. He's a trained military historian, also a former artillery officer. So he is the one that that has done some of the research, and he's the one that orients the visitors to what they're going to be seeing. Probably the most important station there in the tour. We've got a school teacher, Patrick Henderson, who is a Marine Corps veteran in real life, but he's been a teacher for probably 20 years. He portrays a veteran of World War One, who you know, suffers from PTSD in various ways. And then we have other volunteers that are teachers, that are educators, that are storytellers, that are actors, and they all bring their their skill, from their work, from their profession, from their their love, to this place to interact with visitors. And what I want to emphasize is this is not a question and answer session with the public. The public is kind of the bystander, the one who's kind of listening in on kind of a an intimate moment between, you know, conversations between people at the 1920s so and you're not going to hear things that you think you're going to hear like today. Everyone Well, most people understand veterans needs and PTSD and mental health needs back in the 20s, like Hannah was alluding to, it was a strange new world, and we really didn't have anything. So you're going to hear people debating on whether the veterans need benefits. Some of those people say, no, they don't need it. They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Others, of course, you know, are more reasonable, but you're going to hear all the different variations of conversation and arguments that you would have heard at the family table in 1927 from that all the way to the halls of Congress, when they were debating these issues.
Hannah Howard
And the volunteers really bring their own personal experience into how passionate they are to tell not only the the stories for this event, but but all of the the kind of programming that we do, we have, we have people that volunteer, that are very engaged with the stories, and often have a personal connection to it, whether it's because they're, you know, a family that was here in Shawnee, or, you know, going back to the vets tour, you know Karen Griffin, who's an amazing local actor and and living historian. She creates, you know, a mother's story in the Gold Star Mothers scene, which is, you know, all the mothers that experience the loss of one of their children in the war, you know, they're left just with this grief and not knowing what to do with it and how to channel it. And they become advocates for veterans. They become they take their feelings and their emotions, and they put it to work and form the Gold Star Mothers, you know, organization, and they advocate for not only the veterans that are with them, but those who are being memorialized. And so you walk into a scene where the Gold Star Mothers are having a meeting, and they're having that conversation. You know, you walk into a store and you're getting to, you know, hear, what's the, what's just the gossip going around in town, you know, what are they, what are they kind of talking about? You know, all these, all these people are, you know, having this conversation around town, and what do we think of it? And somebody described it as, like walking into a movie scene, you know. So you're just, you're, you're a fly on the wall of that, of that scene.
Charlie Pautler
But these conversations are based on historical research, and you hear people talking politics. I know that's a strange concept for us today, because we don't talk politics, but we politics, right? Yeah, but you hear some very interesting back and forth about the pros and the cons of giving veterans benefits of the Veterans Administration, which was a new idea,
Hannah Howard
yeah, all the volunteers, you know, they're bringing their personal experience, their personal stories, their own losses, their own experience with the war. And I think that it resonates with the visitors and makes this. Program. What it is, you know, we had some, some members of the military, you know, recently retired veterans come on the the tour the last time we did this, couple years ago, and and they commented on how much the topics talked about 100 years ago are still the topics that we talk about today.
Charlie Pautler
And as a director, it makes me really happy that we are finding relevance with our audience, that they are seeing themselves in our programs. What makes me sad is we're still working on these same issues.
Doug Donahoo
Well, for those who want to experience this tour, to be a fly on the wall, to hear those stories and to see that for as much progress as there is, there is still work to be done, even 100 years on, when is the tour going to take place, and how can folks get their place in line if necessary?
Hannah Howard
So the tour is going to be on Saturday, November 15. This is the week of Veterans Day, and we're going to start the tours at five o'clock and go until about nine. They're going to leave every 15 minutes. And we do highly encourage pre registration, because the last time we did this, we filled up. So we encourage you to go on the website Shawnee tom.org I think the tickets might already be live, and so you can actually go on and get them. Now. It's a $2 discount if you go ahead and book online, if you buy at the door, it's 12. If you book online, it's 10. And let me emphasize, any active or retired military get free admission. So we definitely want to have that part of the community out as well. But you do need to register on the website. We've we've done this. This is going to be our third time bringing this program. And you know, we were very honored. This is now a national award winning program. We were given an award by the American Association of State and Local History for this award, so they recognize the power of the Shawnee stories being told in this way. And so we hope that you'll come and join us and see what maybe all the fuss is about.
Doug Donahoo
So Saturday, November 15, from starting at 5pm until 9pm here at Shawnee town 1929 more details available shawneetown.org, Charlie Hannah, thank you both so much for joining us here on the Shawnee pulse. Obviously, as we said, there's a lot of stories to talk about at Shawnee town 1929 and whether someone is coming for the lantern light tour or just to experience any of the other number of events or exhibits here at Shawnee town, 1929 we welcome you every single day the season runs from
Hannah Howard
it will finish at the end of October, yeah. October 31
Doug Donahoo
October 31 so there's still time to come out to Shawnee town 1929 even if you don't have a chance to make it for the lantern, for the lantern light tour, there are lots of other things to see and do. And then the museum will be back open for its normal season in March of 2026
Charlie Pautler
and also engage with us on social media. We have a very powerful Facebook presence. Hana and royal we haven't even talked about royal Kruger yet. Our events coordinator, that could be a whole different
Doug Donahoo
podcast. Yeah, it could be, and I have a limited amount of storage space on the hard drive. That's the problem.
Charlie Pautler
But they keep our Facebook page updated, and you like us on Facebook, yep, Instagram, thank you everywhere.
Doug Donahoo
If people go to the Shawnee town 1929 Facebook page, they have the opportunity to see you, to see Charlie, say, skip it. I believe is that correct?
Hannah Howard
Oh yes. Charlie, stars in some fantastic
Charlie Pautler
videos. I try not to go to the Lulu speaking, speaking
Doug Donahoo
of things that are about to be historic, very, very soon. Charlie, no, I just meant slang in general, more than anything else. Hannah, Charlie, thank you both so much. We hope to see you out at Shawnee town 1929 either this year or in 2026 or even in the years to come. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Shawnee pulse.
Doug Donahoo
Special. Thanks to both Charlie and Hannah for joining us to talk all things Shawnee town, 1929 as they said, it is a very busy time of year in the fall for the for the museum and everything happening there. Sunday, September 14, the wheels and dreams car show from one to 4pm then the following. Saturday, September 20, friends of Shawnee town, craft fair from nine to 4pm that day, September 24 the final jam, and on the green catch that ukulele band from seven to 8:30pm and then that weekend, September 26 and 27th it is great grillers. And then, if we look at the month of October, number of things happening there, including yappy hour on October 9 and a director's tour with Charlie himself on October 11. And then, as we talked about the big event, the return of the veterans lantern light tour on Saturday, November 15, from five to 9pm that is the same week as Veterans Day, and you can find out more information about the Veterans Land lantern tour. Tour, make your reservations and all other events happening at Shawnee town through the rest of this year. If you visit shawneetown.org, once again, I'm Doug Donohoo, communications director for the city. Thank you so much for listening and joining us on this episode of the Shawnee pulse podcast. We'll be back later in September. We'll see you next time you.