National Churchill Museum

I know, it looks like a church but there's a surprise inside.  Read on.

As planned, we left Salina, Kansas, early this morning and headed east to Missouri.  Rob, of course, is a techy guy and is comfortable with a navigation system.  I, however, am a paper map person and so I had one for each state we went through and was constantly looking for interesting spots.  We found a few candidates but by the time we hit the Missouri state line, Rob had already driven about 2,100 miles and we had another 500 to go to get home to Bloomington, Indiana.  We reluctantly decided to pass up the Eisenhower and Truman Presidential Libraries and the American Jazz Museum and put them on the next road trip list.
 
However, we couldn’t pass up the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, on the campus of Westminister College in Fulton, Missouri, because…….

“In 1946 it was at Westminster College that Winston Churchill delivered one of the most significant speeches of his long and illustrious career. That address, formally entitled The Sinews of Peace, but best known for that evocative phrase,  "An Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent", effectively marked the beginning of the Cold War and linked, forever, Fulton and Westminster College with Winston Churchill.

In the 1960s Westminster College set out to mark what would be the 20th anniversary of Churchill's visit. After due consideration to traditional modes of commemoration, Westminster College settled on the rather more ambitious notion of moving a Christopher Wren designed Church from London. This Church, St. Mary the Virgin Aldemanbury, had stood in London since 1677 when it replaced an earlier structure that had sat on the same site since the 12th century. This magnificent building, badly damaged during the London Blitz, was moved stone by stone to Westminster's campus and rebuilt to Wren's original specifications.

Beneath this Church is the National Churchill Museum itself which, through the imaginative and innovative use of technology, brings to life the story of Winston Churchill and the world he knew and is recognized by the United States Congress as America's permanent tribute to this great man and formally designated as America's National Churchill Museum.”

   The museum is a treasure and beautifully done.  It was definitely worth the slight detour (5 miles off the highway) and the extra time.  We still managed to get home by 9:00!  

Extra photos are of the interior of the church and the museum.