Harry S. Truman, antique tractors and intriguing animal life will be featured at some of the newest attractions and experiences awaiting visitors in Missouri this year.
You can’t miss the new Aquarium at the Boardwalk, located in the heart of Branson’s entertainment district. A giant octopus sculpture draped across the top of the building is guaranteed to catch your eye. The real octopi are inside along with colorful fish, seahorses, jellyfish, eels and sharks. Visitors can journey through an underwater tunnel for an immersive view of the sea life, experience a submarine adventure and explore the Mermaid Palace.
A $30 million renovation has revamped and reimagined the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence. The library and museum – the first to be created under the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act – will feature all new interactive exhibits focused on telling Truman’s story. It honors the only president to call Missouri home and chronicles his rise from humble beginnings to the most powerful man in the world.
The groundbreaking exhibit, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America. Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the touring exhibit opens at the Kansas City Union Station in June 2021. It will bring together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from around the world to explore the camp as the site of the largest documented mass murder in history and a symbol of hatred.
The Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. Exhibit
An $11.5 million, 35,000-square-foot outdoor expansion of the Primate House at the award-winning Saint Louis Zoo is scheduled to open in 2021. The Primate Canopy Trails at the Saint Louis Zoo will include eight new outdoor homes for primates. Overhead mesh tunnels will lead to tall sycamore trees and other habitats for lemurs, Old World and New World monkeys. An elevated boardwalk will provide visitors with an eye-level view of the animals’ canopy activity.
Experience the evolution of the machine that has helped feed our nation at the American Tractor Museum in Perryville. See one of the largest collections of its kind, featuring tractors from rare manufacturers such as Rumely, Waterloo Boy, Huber, Centaur, Rock Island and more. Exhibits honor our country’s agriculture heritage and celebrate the machines that plowed, planted and harvested our fields.
The American Tractor Museum in Perryville
Explore an intriguing chapter in Missouri history at the state’s newest national park. The Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park tells the story of the first permanent European settlement in Missouri and preserves some of the oldest and rarest French colonial architecture in the country. The park features several historic buildings including the Amoureux House, a vertical log poteaux-en-terre (post in ground) structure built in 1792. Only five such houses still stand in the United States – and three are located in Ste. Genevieve.
A visitor viewing the diorama of Ste. Genevieve as it looked in 1832 at the Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park
