Opening to Destination Colorado exhibit, showing the facade of a red house with entrance to the exhibit.

Core Exhibition

Destination Colorado

Welcome to Keota, Colorado—the Arcadia of the Plains. It’s 1918 and the American Dream awaits. 

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Destination Colorado Slideshow Image 1
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Location

Tickets Free with museum admission

This High Plains community’s residents greet you at the depot on life-sized media screens and show you their town, sharing triumphs and challenges. Meet the people who homesteaded and settled this watering stop along the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy rail line—the “Prairie Dog Express.” Residents farmed, built a school, and cheered their sports teams with passion, but prairie life was never easy.

Destination Colorado Image Slideshow - Keota Objects 1
Destination Colorado Image Slideshow - Keota Objects 2
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Destination Colorado Image Slideshow - Keota Objects 4

It's part of our historical life. We grew up here, and you can't erase that, ever.

Winona Speaker Hart, former Keota resident

Enroll in Keota’s high school and get your yearbook picture taken. Shop from a Montgomery Ward catalog and buy goods from a general store. Take a virtual joy ride down a bumpy country road in a Model T and get cultured on outhouse culture . . . in an outhouse! Milk a model cow, collect eggs in the barn, and climb into the hayloft and slide back down again.

Your original guides from the depot meet you at each of the stops and tell you the story of the quintessential Coloradans who built this town.