National WWI Museum and Memorial

The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri was opened in 1926 as the Liberty Memorial. In 2004, it was designated by the United States Congress as the country’s official war memorial and museum dedicated to World War I. It is managed by a non-profit organization in cooperation with the Kansas City Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. The museum focuses on global events from the causes of World War I before 1914 through the 1918 armistice and 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Visitors enter the exhibit space within the 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) facility across a glass bridge above a field of 9,000 red poppies, each representing 1,000 combatant deaths. The museum was temporarily closed in 1994 for renovations, and reopened in December 2006 with an expanded facility to exhibit an artifact collection that had begun in 1920.