Qualla: Arabia Steamboat Museum

Arabia Steamboat Museum: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Prosekc, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twenty-nine jars of pickles, still sealed after 132 years underground. That is just one of the items the Hawley family pulled from the buried wreck of the steamboat Arabia, a vessel that struck a tree snag and sank in the Missouri River on September 5, 1856. All 130 passengers survived that day, but 220 tons of frontier-bound cargo went down with the ship. Then the river shifted course, burying the Arabia under a Kansas cornfield. The Wall Street Journal would later call what lay beneath that soil "an Aladdin's cave of objects from the year 1856."

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Image: Prosekc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Arabia Steamboat Museum: Refrigerator Repairmen Turn Treasure Hunters

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. David, Greg, and Bob Hawley were not archaeologists. They ran a refrigeration repair business in Kansas City. But the brothers shared an obsession with lost steamboats, sparked when they excavated the engine of the Missouri Packet in 1987, the first steamboat to sink in the Misso...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain

Arabia Steamboat Museum: A Time Capsule of the Frontier

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Prosekc, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Arabia's cargo was destined for 16 towns on the American frontier, and the sheer volume of what emerged from that cornfield staggered everyone involved. More than 4,000 boots and shoes. 247 hats. 235 ax heads. 328 pocket knives. A single children's doll, known as a Frozen Cha...

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Image: Prosekc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Arabia Steamboat Museum: A Family's Devotion

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. The museum remained a family affair from the beginning. Bob and Florence Hawley, the parents, worked alongside their sons David and Greg. Visitors could often find a Hawley greeting them at the door, answering questions with the enthusiasm of people who had pulled history from th...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain

Arabia Steamboat Museum: The Final Chapter

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. The Arabia Steamboat Museum's lease in Kansas City, located seven miles from the actual wreck site, expires in 2026. Plans to relocate and expand have evolved over the years. In 2019, a proposal to move to Jefferson City, about 140 miles from the wreck, was explored. In 2021, pla...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain