In Kansas, salt mine houses a film museum – 01/08/2024 – Tourism

More than 2,000 km from Hollywood and 200 meters underground, thousands of reels of classic American films and series rest protected from the elements. We are in Kansas, the geographic center of the USA, where you need to look deeper and beyond the wheat plantations to find some of the state’s pearls.

The red shoes of Dorothy, the character from “The Wizard of Oz” who wants to return to her home in Kansas, are in a museum in Los Angeles, but the negatives from the 1939 film are safely stored at Underground Vaults and Storage, a storage installed in a gigantic 100-year-old salt mine, still active and with 240 km of tunnels.

The vaults have been receiving films from various studios since the 1950s, which helped popularize the catchphrase “Send it to the salt mines!” among post-production teams. each time a job is completed.

The idea of ​​storage came from the Second World War, when works of art stolen by Hitler were found in excellent condition buried in German salt mines. The locations are usually safe and have constant temperature and humidity (20 degrees and 45%).

The mine in the city of Hutchinson has a museum, the Strataca Underground Salt Museum, which organizes film sessions and even 5-kilometer races through the disused tunnels. Visitors can check out shelves full of archive boxes, some with negatives from the series “Friends”, and costumes and props from “Superman”, “The Matrix” and “Men in Black”.

The museum tells the story of the salt mine, discovered when oil was being sought in the region, and interesting facts such as the routine of the workers who often go days without seeing sunlight.

It is also because of the underground activities that it is worth visiting Ellinwood, a small town of 2,000 inhabitants 100 km from Hutchinson. A popular stop for explorers from the Midwest, the village attracted German settlers in the 1870s who left a mark on the architecture: basements in all houses and establishments, creating a busy network of tunnels.

Today, only two places maintain their tunnels, an antiques store, whose basements served as a barbershop and bathhouse, and the 1894 Historic Wolf Hotel, whose underground stores became speakeasies during Prohibition in the 1920s.

Tours take visitors through tunnels, decorated to recreate period environments. The hotel, with just five rooms, operates its underground saloon on weekends.

It’s worth noting that the city attracts groups of ghost hunters from all over the world, and the hotel manager has good stories to keep anyone awake at night (the report, however, did not witness anything supernatural).

Back on the surface, Kansas surprises with its nature options, although it does not have national parks of the caliber of its almost neighbor Wyoming, such as Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Among the beautiful prairie landscapes, the state hides the largest swamp area in the interior of the country, called Cheyenne Bottoms, 24 km from Ellinwood. Despite the drought that has hit the region since July 2022, the refuge has recorded more than 360 species of birds and is considered one of the best places to see American cranes, one of the most endangered birds in North America.

Interestingly, the site allows duck, pheasant, quail and deer hunting in specific areas and seasons, and the sale of licenses (R$700 for hunting and fishing for non-residents) helps maintain the 41,000-acre complex. “Obviously, it seems ironic, but these are two uses of wetlands that can coexist,” said Curtis Wolf, director of the Kansas Wetlands Education Center. “The funds the hunting industry generates for conservation are unmatched.”

On dry land, there are plenty of bison to see at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, 80km from Hutchinson. The 2,800-acre refuge, established on the Kansas plains in 1944, also houses elk and hosts tours in an open vehicle or on horseback. In spring, the land is covered in wildflowers and you can see bison calves.

Some restaurants offer bison meat. In the Amish community of Yoder, Carriage Crossing has a special menu on Thursdays with the animal’s steak and burger, not to mention an incredible list of 26 sweet pies.

FOR THE UP AND AWAY

But don’t let the rural vibe fool you. Kansas is also a technology hub, responsible for a third of the planes manufactured in the USA. In addition to underground activities, there is no shortage of space attractions, even if it is necessary to travel hours of roads full of monoculture plantations.

In Atchison, the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum celebrates the local aviator who was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In Hutchinson, the Cosmosphere museum displays the largest combined collection of American and Soviet space artifacts, including an original cache of the Sputnik satellite, in a space that began as a planetarium in 1962.

Wichita, the largest city in the state, with 400,000 inhabitants, has earned the nickname “air capital of the world”. In 1952, it hosted the manufacturing of B-52 bombers and, to this day, it is a base for military production and large manufacturers, such as Airbus, Bombardier and Textron (Cessna).

Wichita holds another Kansas gem, built in 1918 and preserved down to the smallest detail. It is the mansion that Frank Lloyd Wright built for Henry Justin Allen, future governor of the state. “Allen’s house will be like an oasis in the architectural desert of Kansas,” Wright was quoted as saying at the time.

In fact, the Allen House differs from the houses in the College Hill neighborhood. It was Wright’s last construction in the Prairie style, which emphasizes horizontal lines, like the plains of the Midwest.

Easier to find in Wichita is the Guardian of the Plains, a 13-meter sculpture of an indigenous man, on the edge of the confluence of two rivers. The artist Blackbear Bosin has his work displayed in a neighboring museum dedicated to indigenous people.

300 meters away, a huge troll was tied under a rain-catching grate, close to the river bank. It’s not easy to find. It’s just another one of Kansas’ hidden charms.