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.

Real estate developer J. C. Nichols was a lead proponent, and businessman and philanthropist William Volker helped the city acquire the land.

[9] This prevented the monetary problems that had plagued the Bunker Hill Monument for the American Revolutionary War in Boston one century earlier.

The local veteran chosen to present flags to the commanders was a Kansas City haberdasher, Harry S. Truman,[11] who would later serve as 33rd President of the United States from 1945 to 1953.

The magnitude of this memorial, and the broad base of popular support on which it rests, can scarcely fail to excite national wonder and admiration.

Local company Hallmark provided support, and on November 11, 1961, on its 40th anniversary, there was a large dedication ceremony on the memorial grounds.

[17] In 2004, Congress named it the nation's official World War I museum, and construction started on a new 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) expansion and the Edward Jones Research Center underneath the original memorial, which was completed in 2006.

[19][20] An addition planned for completion in 2018[needs update] is the Wylie Gallery, to occupy unused space on the east side of the museum building.

After discord within the organization locally, the design contract was finally awarded to New York architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle.

[25] At night, the top of the 217-foot-tall (66-meter) memorial tower emits a flame effect from steam illuminated by bright red and orange lights.

Carved by Robert Aitken and each standing 40 feet (12 m) tall, they represent protectors of peace, each holding a sword and named for a virtue: Honor, Courage, Patriotism, and Sacrifice.

[27] Memory Hall includes murals originally painted for the Panthéon de la Guerre in Paris, and adapted by LeRoy Daniel MacMorris[15]: 99–111  in the 1950s.

Between each hall and the tower, above the museum entrance, sit two stone Assyrian sphinxes, named "Memory" and "Future", covering their faces with their wings.

[28] The north side of the museum, opposite the main entrance and below the Liberty tower, contains a large work of art upon its wall, which is visible from neighboring Union Station.