Stauth Memorial Museum

Location:  Downtown Montezuma

Contact:  620.846.0396

Fee:  Donations Appreciated

Photos Copyright Harland J. Schuster.  Please do not use without permission.

What's the typical image that comes to mind when most folks think of a Kansas wheat farmer?  The stereotype of the hard working, but simple man, beaten down by years of hard work in an unforgiving land with no dreams of travel beyond the local elevator would, unfortunately, be a pretty common answer.

Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.   Case in point:  Claude and Donalda Stauth, late, of Montezuma, smack dab in the middle of wheat country.  Claude, the wheat farmer, met and married Donalda, a professional studio photographer in Dodge City, in the 1930's.  Though the couple had no children, they found happiness together, and especially enjoyed travel during the winter.  While the Kansas wheat farmer's fields slumbered beneath ice and snow, Claude and Donnie began their world travels in the 1940's.

With a trip around the Mediterranean Sea in 1951, travel bug had bitten for sure.  From then until their final trip abroad, to China, in 1979, the Stauths were annual globe trotters.

Donnie's skills as a photographer served the couple well in their travels.  The museum has a collection of over 10,000 slides taken during their travels to nearly every continent.  A few of these have been edited and can be viewed in a truly riveting slide presentation at the museum.

Claude, for his part, used two essential skills of a Kansas wheat farmer, bargaining and thrift, to procure what can only be described as an amazing collection of crafts literally from around the world.  Typically, he would trade things we would never think of as valuable in this country but which are quite rare in developing countries.  A couple sheets of sandpaper with a pack of chewing gum thrown in to sweeten the deal might buy a finely crafted musical instrument in Africa.   An American postage stamp might be of tremendous value in Bulgaria, and so on.

Back home, these items would serve to remind the couple of their travels, and fuel the desire to travel again.  In their over three decades of travels, the Stauths collected literally a house full of items.  Claude passed away in 1987, and Donnie decided to share their collection of crafts and photographic slides with the community with the construction of a museum.  Donnie picked the location of the future museum before passing away in 1993.  Construction began in 1994, and today the museum stands in downtown Montezuma as a monument to the world traveling couple from western Kansas.

A neighbor and friend of the Stauths, Ralph Fry, was a bit of a traveler as well.  Ralph hunted big game animals in the American West, Alaska, Canada, and Norway.  Many of these animals he had mounted, and his display at the museum is pretty impressive of itself.

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