Major topics covered in the main gallery include Native American tribal history, westward movement on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, early settlers, the Bleeding Kansas and Civil War eras, and Populism at the turn of the 20th century.
The current museum building was built in 1980s to house the Society's object collections and exhibits.
Dubbed the Kansas Museum of History, it opened in 1984 at an 80-acre (320,000 m2) site in west Topeka near the historic Potawatomi Mission.
[1] In addition to galleries, the building also houses a museum store, classrooms, and labs for conservation and exhibit fabrication.
[4] In the mid-1990s, the rest of the Society's divisions moved to the new Center for Historical Research adjacent to the museum.