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Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum

Statue of Amelia Earhart in front of museum in Atchison
Amelia Earhart statue, Atchison (Kan.)

Amelia Earhart speaks. She smiles, looks up, and begins to talk about her life experiences.

Wait – didn’t Amelia Earhart disappear in the South Pacific 80 years ago?

Yes, but she is alive again – at least virtually – in an incredible museum that will open in her hometown of Atchison in spring, 2023.

Joe Brentano is director of the new Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum. Makinzie Burghart is director of development. Burghart grew up in Atchison as did Amelia Earhart 120 years earlier.

Earhart and her younger sister, Muriel, spent many of their early years at their grandparent’s home in Atchison. In 1908, she saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair, but it didn’t excite her at the time.

Years later, she and a friend were at a flying exposition when a stunt pilot dived at them.  “I believe that little red airplane spoke to me as it swished by,” Earhart later wrote.

After attending another air show, she was hooked on flying. She would go on to become the first president of the Ninety-Nines, a women’s aviation organization; the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; first woman to fly solo coast-to-coast; and the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the mainland. Continue reading “Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum”