NARRATOR: On September 5, 1856, the steamboat Arabia
was making its way up the Missouri River
loaded with 222 tons of cargo.
6 miles west of Kansas City.
It hit a tree snag that tore open its hull.
It sank in minutes.
Its cargo went down with the ship and by the next morning
was buried under layers of the Missouri's mud and silt.
The river changes course over time.
I got old river maps to find out where the river
had once been in 1856.
And what a surprise, it was now in the middle of a cornfield.
I then with the farmer's permission went into the field
in 1988 and began the search, walking back and forth
in a cornfield with a tool, with a metal
detector called a magnetometer.
We found it with a metal detector
and then brought out a drill rig and began
to test drill to see how deep it was and exactly where it lay.
It took us probably a week of drilling
to find the sides, the front and the back,
then we could chalk it with white chalk
all the way around the boat.
And for the first time, there it was.
That Arabia was 171 feet long.
10 point down, we win.
For the excavation of Arabia to be successful,
we had to dig it in the winter.
There was big surprises like food products that survived,
pickles and pie fillings you could still eat,
barrels of butter that still smelled fresh.
There was clothing of all types and shoes.
We found 4,000 boots and shoes.
We found cooking utensils and beautiful sets
of dishes, guns and knives.
And by the time we'd finished it four months later,
no one was talking about selling the collection.
We began the excavation November the 13th of 1988.
The museum opened up November the 13th of 1991.
Three years to the day.
It is very cool.
I mean, just this is impressive.
Yeah.
Yeah, so what you see here is rebuilt. What
you see there is the real deal.
That is incredible.
We take an arm, the structure, and the engine.
No kidding.
Very cool.
You know, Dave, what is your mission going forward?
Momentarily, when we go into the collection,
you'll see a collection unlike anything you've ever seen.
And that's one boat, that's one story.
Eventually, the goal would be to have six boats.
One from each decade of river travel,
from the '20s through the '70s.
The Arabia tells a story of the 1850s
and the settlers coming West.
The boat that we're going to work on later
is one called the Malta, sank in 1841 bringing Indian trade
goods to the frontier.
The Radnor that we'll look for, another huge story carrying
military supplies to Fort Leavenworth.
It's not a story of just steamboats,
it's a story about the development of whole West.
You're going to learn some things, aren't you?
You learn things like you have never learned before.
Lead on.
Show us where to go.
What David has been able to do with his son,
Matt, and his team is nothing short of incredible.
And I didn't understand the magnitude
of what he had done until I stepped foot in the museum.
In fact, I literally thought the upstairs
gift shop part was the museum until he walked us underground.
We couldn't bring up the whole boat,
so this wood floor that you're on is the boat.
The barrel up there is the front.
This is the back of the boat, the boilers are where they
were, the wheels where it was.
Oh, so we're standing--
You're standing on the model.
Wow.
Man, did you guys do a great job.
And then as a river traveler, that's
what Kansas City would have looked like as you
paddle your way upstream.
I mean, I'm very impressed that you guys built this.
Well, you get a real good idea of scale right now, right?
I mean, this is the boat.
Yeah, it is.
Let's stroll the deck, shall we?
We walk about a football field length of artifacts
that are perfectly preserved.
It's stunning.
It's like nothing I've ever seen in my life.
And you know, it gives a whole new definition to the term,
treasure, really.
Where are we going next?
We're going into a room that we call our general store.
Wow.
Matt, is it fair to say a lot of the things we've seen when
we walked by would have ended up in a store
just like this for sale?
Is that what was happening?
Absolutely, yeah.
Most of the stuff was going up for general stores
just for resale so that's why you see so many
of the same thing.
It was going up for folks for the winter.
They were the 18 wheelers of the day.
And the quality of this stuff, I mean, we're talking
about the frontier, right?
At this point.
But people still want quality, and they're
still willing to pay for it.
People were people.
They wanted nice things.
And they would import them if not from the States,
from Europe. - Yeah.
Like those plates, where are those from?
Exactly. Came from England.
From England, yeah, that would make sense.
They had to be carrying alcohol.
Did you find anything like that?
In the boat, downstairs in the cargo hold trapped,
filled with mud and water were cases
of champagnes and cognac and gin, like you see over there.
Wow.
Well, I'll tell you what, guys, I have treasure envy.
[laughing]
Coming from you, that's a compliment.
I feel that is awesome.
It's spectacular.
You had to resist the urge to sell some of this stuff.
You know, we've never had that.
Never had.
No. we never had that thought.
Let's sell a boot.
Well, those plates up there.
We're all kind of attached to these stuff.
It's like our little children.
I absolutely applaud you for it.
But have you ever had it evaluated?
As anybody came up with a number and say--
Oh, sure. it's worth millions and millions of dollars,
the collection itself.
It has to be. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you got real treasure and you got real history here.