A new exhibit opens at the Smoky Hill Museum in Salina this week.

According to the museum, A Place to Call Home, opens Friday.

A Place to Call Home explores the settling of Kansas. In the early days, Kansas was filled with challenges and plenty of dangers. Imagine arriving in a vast wilderness with few resources and enduring all that Kansas weather can muster. With limited options for supplies, making a home on the prairie was not for the timid or faint of heart. Nonetheless, thousands traveled to Kansas to stake their claim and create a new life.

Whether on foot, horseback, wagon, train or boat—they came. Whether bringing a wagon stuffed with goods or empty pockets—they came. Alone or in families—they came. The great immigration of settlers into Kansas started in the mid-1850s, swelled after the Civil War and continued through the late 1800s.

In this exhibit, hear from those who risked it all through diary entries. These stories share the decisions immigrants made, the hardships they faced and the hope that brought them to Kansas.

A Place to Call Home offers two hands-on activities to spur engagement. Visitors explore and experience the trail like an 1800s pioneer with the interactive “Who will prevail–You or the Trail?” This interactive challenges their knowledge to see if they would survive as pioneers. The interactive, “The Immigrant in You,” asks visitors to show from where they or their family immigrated to Kansas.

Visit the Smoky Hill Museum to see A Place to Call Home. The exhibit opens October 27. The Smoky Hill Museum is a nationally accredited history museum at 211 West Iron Avenue in Salina, Kansas. This FREE museum is open Tuesday-Friday 11-5 and Saturday 10-5. Also, be sure to stop by the Museum Store for a wide variety of regional and Kansas products, local artwork and gifts for all ages.