A 1915 buggy shares a Kirksville museum with an 1862 battle

A diorama of the 1862 Battle of Kirksville sits in the same museum collection as a 1915 one-seat horse-drawn buggy, rural-school displays, military uniforms, and a replica of Adair County’s first church. Even an old Kirksville High School scoreboard found its way there.

The research room tells the same county story on paper. Its shelves and files include photographs, county histories, school and university yearbooks, family histories, city directories, probate records, maps, surveyors’ plots, and microfilm of census and newspaper records. Film clips preserve early-1900s landmarks and activities.

The Adair County Historical Society began in 1916. A century later, it opened reorganized galleries in a lower level that had once suffered water damage. The displays were grouped around agriculture, business, and general county history instead of being left in storage.

That makes the museum at 211 South Elson Street two places at once: a room full of things people can see and a working archive for the names, streets, schools, and families behind them.